{"id":175060,"date":"2025-12-09T02:12:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T02:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/175060\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T02:12:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T02:12:06","slug":"ed-sheeran-on-oscar-contending-f1-song-drive-taylor-swift-hits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/175060\/","title":{"rendered":"Ed Sheeran on Oscar-Contending F1 Song ‘Drive,’ Taylor Swift, Hits"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEd Sheeran<\/a>, the guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s Awards<\/a> Chatter podcast, is an English singer\/songwriter who has been described by Rolling Stone as \u201camong the 21st century\u2019s very biggest global pop superstars;\u201d by the Los Angeles Times as \u201carguably the most successful male pop star in the world;\u201d by The Guardian as \u201cthe most commercially successful British artist of his age\u201d and \u201can era-defining musician [who] has earned his place alongside [David] Bowie, Elton [John], George Michael, Morrissey and Elvis Costello in the pantheon of great British male solo artists;\u201d and by the New York Times as \u201cthis generation\u2019s James Taylor,\u201d \u201cone of the few consistently bankable solo male global pop stars working\u201d and \u201ca defining pop artist of the modern era.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt just 34, Sheeran is already a four-time Grammy winner who has had two songs top the Billboard Hot 100 \u2014 \u201cShape of You\u201d and \u201cPerfect\u201d \u2014 and four albums top the Billboard 200. On the back of his megahit 2017 album Divide, he became that year\u2019s bestselling musician in the world, and he ultimately became Spotify\u2019s second-most-streamed artist of the 2010s, behind only Drake. And today, with more than 200 million records sold worldwide, he is one of the bestselling music artists of all time; the third most-followed person on Spotify, behind only the Indian singer Arijit Singh and Taylor Swift; and one of TIME\u2019s 100 most influential people in the world for 2025.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier this fall, he released his eighth studio album, Play; and he is currently in the running for best original song Oscar nominations for not one but two songs that he co-penned and performed for blockbuster 2025 films: \u201cDrive\u201d for F1: The Movie<\/a>, which he wrote with John Mayer<\/a> and Blake Slatkin, and which received a best song Critics Choice Award nomination last week; and \u201cZoo\u201d for Zootopia 2<\/a>, which he wrote with Shakira<\/a> and Slatkin.<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the course of a recent conversation at the London West Hollywood hotel, Sheeran reflected on his unlikely path from busking on the streets of London to superstardom; the origin stories of several of his biggest hits, including \u201cThe A Team,\u201d \u201cSing,\u201d \u201cThinking Out Loud\u201d and \u201cBad Habits;\u201d why he agreed to write songs for movies, and how doing so differs from the way he usually writes music; plus much more.<\/p>\n

\n\tA few notable excerpts from the transcript of the conversation follow.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Taylor Swift, who once described him as \u201cthe James Taylor to my Carole King\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was opening up for Snow Patrol in Nashville, and Frank, who works with Taylor, would come down. And I just sort of mentioned, I just said, \u2018If she ever wants to write a song, I\u2019m around.\u2019 I knew that she knew my music; she\u2019d written the lyrics to \u201cLego House\u201d on her hand when she was playing in, I want to say Brisbane, maybe it was Sydney, it was somewhere in Australia, but there was these photos going around of her with my lyrics on her hand. So I was like, \u2018If she ever wants to write\u2026\u2019 And then we met. Obviously, we\u2019re the opposite sex, and we\u2019re from different countries and cultures, but I feel very intertwined creatively with her. And we had all this time on [the 2013-2014 Red] tour together where we sort of bonded as friends and collaborators and performers. And I do really agree with the James Taylor and Carole King thing. We have very transient lives. I\u2019m very much settled kids in school. And then touring, I do see her from time to time. And when we see [each other], you just lock back in and reconnect, and it\u2019s like no time has passed. It\u2019s very similar to a sibling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn his song \u201cSing,\u201d which Pharrell produced and backed you on, and which became his first No. 1 in the U.K. and went to No. 13 in America\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think that that is one of the most important songs in my discography because it took me out of the pigeonhole. I really think that that allowed me to be as experimental as I wanted without people raising eyebrows\u2026 I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s the biggest hit in my discography, but it opened up the door. And I don\u2019t think songs like \u2018Shape of You\u2019 happen without that door being opened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn his album Divide, the first two singles of which, \u201cShape of You\u201d and \u201cCastle on the Hill,\u201d both debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, something that no artist had achieved in the 58-year history of the charts up to that point; \u201cShape of You\u201d was at No. 1 for 12 non-consecutive weeks, becoming the biggest song of 2017; other hits on the album included \u201cPerfect\u201d and \u201cHappier\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think everything was leading to that \u2014\u00a0all of the build from Plus, all of the build from Multiply, songs like \u2018Sing\u2019 opening me up to new audiences. I think that was the nucleus point where it all just sort of connected. You look at many artists\u2019 careers and they have these moments that everything leads to, and then life goes on from there. I\u2019ll be lucky if I have one more of those in my life. Sometimes people get two, sometimes people get three, but I\u2019m lucky that I had one where it all just clicked.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn his new series of albums about music playback commands, following the five about mathematical symbols\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere will be five \u2014 technically six, because there\u2019ll be one when I die called Ejects. I like the idea of creating whatever the posthumous album is before I go. Losing Jamal [Edwards, his close friend and early champion], and him dying without a will, was difficult for everyone, and it really made me think like, \u2018If I do pass away, I want to make sure everything\u2019s in order.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn becoming involved with F1: The Movie and writing the original song \u201cDrive\u201d for it\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019d met Jerry [Bruckheimer, the producer] at the F1 2022 in Austin \u2014\u00a0maybe they were scouting for something, I don\u2019t think they were shooting at this point, but him and Brad [Pitt] were there \u2014 and he was like, \u201cYou should do a song for the film when it\u2019s finished.\u201d I was just sort of like, \u201cYeah, cool. Fine.\u201d And then they did get in touch. Because of the kind of artist that I am and the sort of songs that I\u2019ve had that have been massive, people go, \u2018We would love to have you for the love scene and we\u2019ll do this\u2014\u2019 What I liked about it was Jerry was he was just sort of like, \u2018You pick and you do what you want.\u2019 I watched the first iteration of it, about 40 minutes on Zoom with Jerry, and then I got a screener and stuff like that, but it wasn\u2019t like a finished movie. And I picked the end scene when he [Pitt\u2019s character] is riding off in the dune buggy. I know what John [Mayer] can do \u2014\u00a0John is just a guitar wizard, and I knew that he would come up with the best riff \u2014 and we got in the studio, me, him, and Blake. He did the riff, did the melody. I took it away, added the lyrics, came back, tweaked it a little bit. And then Blake and John got Dave Grohl in and Pino Palladino.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn whether or not, with \u201cDrive,\u201d he was trying to create a song that would also have an appeal independent of the movie\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking of the independentness at all. No, I don\u2019t think it necessarily does. It certainly doesn\u2019t fit in my catalog\u00a0\u2014\u00a0it\u2019s like a big rock song. I actually said to the guy that runs F1, I was like, \u2018Just have that song. I don\u2019t want any money for it. Use it for whatever you want. Because if it doesn\u2019t exist in that world, it\u2019s kind of redundant.\u2019 I just wanted it to be this fucking massive end credit song. Even me singing sounds like a car engine starting, but it\u2019s just powerful and in your face. That whole movie is so adrenaline filled. You feel physically sick at points in that film as cars are speeding and whizzing by. So I wanted the song to have the same sort of power, energy, and adrenaline. And I think as I was making it, I sort of knew it didn\u2019t exist outside the film. I was just like, this song is purpose built for this moment in the movie. And I think that\u2019s what\u2019s good about making songs specifically for movies \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s tied to the film, and if the film\u2019s great and the film lives on and the film has legacy, then the song has legacy. I think if you were to create a song thinking, \u2018This has to exist outside the movie,\u2019 then it won\u2019t. I\u2019ve met loads of people over the years that discovered me through The Desolation of Smaug \u2014\u00a0they watch that song, and \u201cI See Fire\u201d comes on at the end, and then they check my music out. And if this F1 film continues to be the sort of juggernaut that it is for the next 30 or 40 years of my life and career, people are always going to discover that song, which is exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ed Sheeran, the guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s Awards Chatter podcast, is an English singer\/songwriter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1096,3702,74459,4249,146,97655,85,46,53070,34888,93553],"class_list":{"0":"post-175060","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-awards","9":"tag-awards-chatter","10":"tag-awards-chatter-podcast","11":"tag-ed-sheeran","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-f1-the-movie","14":"tag-il","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-john-mayer","17":"tag-shakira","18":"tag-zootopia-2"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}