Eraser

Ed Sheeran opens his Divide album with this rapped track. The guitar-driven song finds him reflecting on fame ("I wish my private life would've never gone public") and relationships gone wrong ("I wish I'd never broken her heart"). Speaking to Beats 1's Zane Lowe, " Sheeran said of the tune: "I wanted to casually move into a stadium zone without making twelve 'Castle on the Hills.' I wanted to make songs that sounded big but weren't necessarily just euphoric stadium anthems."

Ed Sheeran wrote the introspective song with Snow Patrol's Johnny McDaid. He recalled to Zane Lowe: "I was in my treehouse with Johnny McDaid and the label were like we want another 'Bloodstream' and I was like no. Then I was writing loads of songs with Johnny we did 'Hearts Don't Break Around Here' the same night. And before we went to bed, I was playing around on the guitar and I had that riff so we recorded it on his iPhone and I went to bed and had all these ideas of the song being called 'Eraser' cause I just liked that as a title. I woke up in the morning, Johnny hadn't been to bed and he produced this whole beat to that riff I recorded on his iPhone which is still the same riff. That riff is recorded from the memos. And the original first line of it was what is now the bridge 'welcome to the new show' and i was just sitting there and i was like this doesn't hit anywhere here. And then so I just said Johnny can you bugger off for a bit and let me just see what I can do and just write loads of bars and the first thing I came up with was 'I was born inside a small town, I've lost that state of mind. Learned to sing inside the Lord's house, but stopped at the age of 9. I forget when I get awards now, The wave I had to ride, The paving stones I played upon, They kept me on the grind' and that came within like five seconds and I was like 'Oh wow something's happening' and then Johnny came back half an hour later and we recorded the song. It was just basically vomiting on a song."

Friends and family filled with envy when they should be filled with pride And when the world's against me is when I really come alive Sheeran explained the lyric to Zane Lowe: "I mean the line is friends and family filled with envy but it's not outward envy it's just the odd line here and there. Just being like 'well that must be nice'. Or you'll be somewhere and you'll purposefully want to split a bill just to make a point like you could get it but you're just like today's not the day, we're gonna split the bill and someone will make a comment like 'but you're rich' and you're like ah. That's where that line is coming from. Friends and family are meant to be the ones that are f----n there for you and ninety percent of the time they are but every now and then there's the odd comment that just sinks your soul."