I only really listen to Ed Sheeran when his songs are on the radio. If I have to choose, I prefer his upbeat pop songs rather than his sad love ballads. Like, listening to his ballads makes me cringe, and I’m not anti-ballad in anyway. I love Adele, I love a good heart-wrenching ballad or bittersweet love song. But I just prefer Ed Sheeran when he’s singing about other sh-t, honestly. Still, he loves his cringeworthy ballads, and he just released a new single, “Perfect,” which sounds like all of the rest of his ballads. Only this one has some guest vocals by Beyonce. Bey and Ed are friendly in the sense that they hang out occasionally and she’s deigned to work with him a few times. Here’s “Perfect,” featuring Beyonce, which was released last week:
I’m not into it, even with Beyonce. This was playing on the radio all weekend and I changed the channel every single time too, so it’s not even a good car song. That’s not the point though – this is the slow-dance song at Christmas parties. Blah. Anyway, Ed Sheeran talked about how he managed to get Beyonce to agree to this. Apparently, it involved secret email addresses and Beyonce completely reworking the song.
Getting a hold of Beyonce isn’t easy, but Ed Sheeran managed to do it. ET’s Keltie Knight caught up with the 26-year-old singer at KIIS-FM’s iHeartRadio Jingle Ball presented by Capital One at the Forum in Inglewood, California, on Friday, where he revealed how he was able to snag the superstar for a duet.
“I have an email address I email [to get in touch with Beyonce],” Sheeran revealed, adding that the singer’s email address “actually changes every week.” “So I emailed that and we got on the phone, and it’s been in the works since May.”
“Obviously she had twins [in June], and we finished [the song] in September, so I’ve been holding onto it since then,” he continued of “Perfect,” which was released on Thursday.
According to Sheeran, Bey recorded the song in just one take — and even had input on the track’s instrumentals.
“The original version of ‘Perfect’ was just an acoustic guitar and she rung me up and was like, ‘I don’t know how you feel about this but I’ve taken all the instruments off it and it’s just gonna be acoustic guitar,’ and I was like, ‘Ah that’s great, because it used to be that!'” he revealed. “Then when we got in together, it wasn’t so much notes, it was very much like a back and forth thing, like, ‘What’d you think of this?’ Or ‘What do you think of this?’ and [we were] probably in the studio for four hours. She was just like, ‘Right!’ Went in, one take, came out, like, ‘Yeah, that sounds alright!'”
The subtext here cracks me up – Beyonce is a notorious perfectionist and micromanager, and for Beyonce to just spend a few hours in the studio and then just hammer out the single in one take… it sounds like this was just something she did for fun, because she had an afternoon off. Like, does Bey really give a sh-t about Ed Sheeran or this song? Or was she like, “oh, I have a hole in my schedule that afternoon, let me just go into the studio, sing this song one time and forget about it.” It will probably be the #1 song over Christmas.
Also: she changes her email every week? How does that even work??
Photos courtesy of Getty.
It sounds like Beyonce had a handler that’s emailed and they set up a “current” address to contact her. Its probably not changed weekly, but often. She probably doesn’t do anything special, so from her end it’s seamless.
‘According to Sheeran, Bey recorded the song in just one take — and even had input on the track’s instrumentals.’
I suspect that input ended up in a writing credit.
Has anyone here seen Beyonce up close? Does her skin really glow like I think it does, especially in that first and last picture? She’s one of the few celebrities who I’d love to know what they actually do to their skin.
Also, when it comes to musical celebritty collaborations for some reason I like the two extremes. There’s Beyonce and Jay-Z who are INCREDIBLY selective about who’s songs they appear on. Then, there’s Lil Wayne. I remember watching a “Making the Video” with him YEARS ago and they asked how he chooses. He flat out said if you can put up the money for my fee, then it’s a yes. LOL, I loved it. It was refreshingly honest and unpretentious. I don’t know what his deal is now, though.
I’m a retoucher and no, it doesn’t. Even the paparazzi photos you see of Bey are retouched.
I have never met her but I know a woman that has and she said that she was very nice and her exact words were “she is even prettier in person. Pictures don’t do her justice.”
Very true Avery. She is a very beautiful woman. Saw her in person ( I worked for her mom’s brands). She really has nice skin and very pretty. She was nice too, a litttle introverted but nice and polite.
@Ce2495 I left out introverted because it seems so unlike her but that is exactly what my friend said! She was surprised that she was sh, but opened up once her mother, sister and cousin showed up. She said her skin also said her skin is flawless. That is the exact description I was told.
Her skin looks perfect all the time. I’d love to know as well.
I get it, though. I don’t think it’s necessarily micromanaging but for security purposes. Email addresses get out all the time. So better safe than sorry, I guess.
” Like, does Bey really give a sh-t about Ed Sheeran or this song?”
Why wouldn’t she care about the person she’s working with and something she’s putting her name on? Just because u aren’t fond of this dude doesn’t mean that Beyonce isn’t.She obviously cared enough to work with him and create a song.
This is such a cute song! And I say this as someone who is usually allergic to this kind of weepy feely crap. Beyoncé adds a really nice layer to it. It’s Sheeran’s song, of course she would not micro-manage it. And he was snubbed for whatever trophy show recently (when his songs are playing non-stop at least here in the UK) so it was particularly gracious of her to do this with him.
Kaiser, you have a heart of stone 😄
And I love her last photo: girlfriend really likes the pantyhose with the leotard. She looks so happy and relaxed. Good for her.
Whenever I see red carpet photos of celebrities I think of the Hunger Games capital (which obviously draws themes from Hollywood) — people looking expressionless, perfectly manicured, graceful, but in ridiculous clothes that us normal people wouldn’t be caught wearing ever.
I love B to the end but not crazy about her collaborations with Em or Ed so far.
But normally means she is working on something.