Photograph - Felix Jaehn Remix

Sheeran co-penned the song with Snow Patrol guitarist Johnny McDaid in a hotel room in Kansas. The pair wrote together while Sheeran supported the band on the North American leg of the band's Fallen Empires Tour in 2012. Five of the tunes they penned made it onto x, (six on the deluxe version).

Sheeran recalled the story of the song during a Spotify track by track: "He (McDaid) had a loop of this piano piece just going on and on. I was sat on the floor making a Lego X-Wing Fighter to give to his sister for a charity auction and this piano loop keeps playing, and I start singing a line and the song kind of unraveled from there. We sat for about four hours, me making Lego, and him on the laptop, just building stuff and then I picked up a guitar and we properly structured it."

Sheeran described this cut about the pain of love when you're separated from your sweetheart to The Daily Telegraph as his "collateral" song. "If the rest of the album is s--t we can sell it on this one," he explained.