Taylor Swift revealed that one Ed Sheeran song was a big inspiration to her as an artist. It also made her want to collaborate with the “Thinking Out Loud” singer for her album, Red. The song Swift liked so much wasn’t much of a hit in the United States. However, it was massive elsewhere.
Taylor Swift loves a line from this Ed Sheeran song
During a 2015 interview with Rolling Stone, Swift named some of the songs that made her want to become an artist or inspired her in some way.
Most of the songs she chose were from the 20th century, showing that she likes to keep her music in the now. The tunes included Bon Iver’s “Blood Bank,” Dashboard Confessional’s “Hands Down,” and Kendrick Lamar’s “Backseat Freestyle.” She also revealed her love of Sheeran’s folk/soft-rock single “Lego House.”
“I was so intrigued by this song that I reached out to Ed to write for my album Red,” she explained. “I loved the cadence of the pre-chorus, ‘And it’s dark in a cold December, but I got you to keep me waa-arm.’ We wrote in a Phoenix hotel room, ate In-N-Out burgers and essentially became a permanent fixture in each other’s lives.” Notably, Swift and Sheeran have collaborated on songs like “Everything Has Changed,” “End Game,” and “The Joker and the Queen.”
Why Ed Sheeran’s songs are so quirky
Sheerna’s choice to use a Lego house as a metaphor is characteristically oddball. In his songs, he’s name-dropped everything from Shrek, Rihanna’s “We Found Love,” Aretha Franklin, and painting by numbers. In a 2011 Interview Magazine article, the “Photograph” singer explained why he makes these lyrical choices.
“I think it’s good to remember that everything has been done before,” he explained. “The public has heard the stereotypical love songs a million times and they’ve heard the stereotypical life-or-death songs millions of times.
“It’s good to mix it up a little bit,” Sheeran continued. “That’s why the different subject matters and love songs on the album are a bit odd and have some rapping things in it and popular culture references.
I just wanted to kind of make it a little bit different.” Sheeran classifies his genre as acoustic soul, which is a rare style indeed, and said that he likes to experiment musically.