Upon the arrival of Ed Sheeran's - (a.k.a. Subtract) album earlier this year, it was noted how the artist and the National's Aaron Dessner ended up writing more than 30 songs during a month-long studio session. Now, the rest of that material has been collected for Sheeran's second Dessner-produced album of 2023.
With legal troubles in the rearview, and no more mathematical symbols to mine, Sheeran will share Autumn Variations on September 29 via his own Gingerbread Man Records.
Of the 14-song album's title, Sheeran recalled in a release, "My dad and brother told me about a composer called Elgar, who composed Enigma Variations, where each of the 14 compositions were about a different one of his friends. This is what inspired me to make this album." Just don't tell the family of the English composer!
Sheeran goes on to confirm that the songs making up Autumn Variations were born from that aforementioned studio time with Dessner. "We wrote and recorded non-stop and this album was born out of that partnership. I feel he has captured the feeling of autumn so wonderfully in his sonics and I hope everyone loves it as much as I do."
Dessner had previously spoken of his "deeply vulnerable" collaboration with Sheeran, sharing that music written during the session was "inspired by a very difficult period [Sheeran] was going through in his life."
Sheeran has now expanded on that personally fraught period himself, recalling how "Last autumn, I found that my friends and I were going through so many life changes. After the heat of the summer, everything either calmed, settled, fell apart, came to a head or imploded."
The artist found that "writing songs helped me understand my feelings and come to terms with what was going on, and when I learned about my friend's different situations, I wrote songs, some from their perspectives, some from mine, to capture how they and I viewed the world at that time. There were highs of falling in love and new friendships among lows of heartbreak, depression, loneliness and confusion."
Pre-save and pre-order Autumn Variations.
Autumn Variations:
1. Magical
2. England
3. Amazing
4. Plastic Bag
5. Blue
6. American Town
7. That's on Me
8. Page
9. Midnight
10. Spring
11. Punchline
12. When Will I Be Alright
13. The Day I Was Born
14. Head > Heels
With legal troubles in the rearview, and no more mathematical symbols to mine, Sheeran will share Autumn Variations on September 29 via his own Gingerbread Man Records.
Of the 14-song album's title, Sheeran recalled in a release, "My dad and brother told me about a composer called Elgar, who composed Enigma Variations, where each of the 14 compositions were about a different one of his friends. This is what inspired me to make this album." Just don't tell the family of the English composer!
Sheeran goes on to confirm that the songs making up Autumn Variations were born from that aforementioned studio time with Dessner. "We wrote and recorded non-stop and this album was born out of that partnership. I feel he has captured the feeling of autumn so wonderfully in his sonics and I hope everyone loves it as much as I do."
Dessner had previously spoken of his "deeply vulnerable" collaboration with Sheeran, sharing that music written during the session was "inspired by a very difficult period [Sheeran] was going through in his life."
Sheeran has now expanded on that personally fraught period himself, recalling how "Last autumn, I found that my friends and I were going through so many life changes. After the heat of the summer, everything either calmed, settled, fell apart, came to a head or imploded."
The artist found that "writing songs helped me understand my feelings and come to terms with what was going on, and when I learned about my friend's different situations, I wrote songs, some from their perspectives, some from mine, to capture how they and I viewed the world at that time. There were highs of falling in love and new friendships among lows of heartbreak, depression, loneliness and confusion."
Pre-save and pre-order Autumn Variations.
Autumn Variations:
1. Magical
2. England
3. Amazing
4. Plastic Bag
5. Blue
6. American Town
7. That's on Me
8. Page
9. Midnight
10. Spring
11. Punchline
12. When Will I Be Alright
13. The Day I Was Born
14. Head > Heels