Ed Sheeran arrives at Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, April 25, 2023. Sheeran is being sued by the heirs of Ed Townsend, co-writer of Marvin Gayes "Lets Get It On", for copyright infringement in his 2014 song "Thinking Out Loud". After the Grammy Award-winning songwriter discovered his pregnant wife Cherry Seaborn was diagnosed with cancer, he revealed he wrote seven songs in four hours to cope with the devastating news.
"It made me massively reflect on our mortality. I would never agree to do anything like this, but it made me think, 'Oh if I died, what's people's perception of me? What do you leave behind?'" "For Ed, the whole point is he wants to say to people, 'I'm not just this music machine. I'm not just this robot that tries to get No. 1. I'm a father, I'm a son, I'm a friend.' It wasn't until this year when I was like, 'I might die.'"