THE MELANCHOLIC ECHOES OF ED SHEERAN’S ‘OLD PHONE’
“Music is the closest thing we have to a time machine.”
This is a sentiment I’ve always carried with me and one that has felt true, especially lately while listening to two tracks released within a week of each other: Ed Sheeran’s Old Phone and Avril Lavigne’s Young and Dumb. The songs have evoked a strong feeling of nostalgia, and the emotional chords underneath have essentially pulled me back through the reaches of time: to dusty school corridors, to the blurry and turbulent times of growing up, and the unresolved fragments of who we used to be.
This first part begins with Ed Sheeran’s Old Phone – a song that feels like digging up a buried time capsule from many years ago. It is one of those deeper cuts that makes you sit in deep silence, revisiting ghosts and memories of the past, and to reminisce on what was. It is not the sort of nostalgia that makes you want to jump and dance, but rather one of looking back on evolution and growth over the years. It is a nostalgia viewed through the lens of adulthood, reflecting on what one has endured and overcome.
TRACING BACK TO THOSE ACOUSTIC ROOTS
In a time when pop music dominated the airwaves, Ed Sheeran burst onto the scene in 2011 with a unique sound, accompanied by a guitar, a loop pedal, and songs filled with raw vulnerability. Songs like “A Team” and “Small Bump” introduced us to a stripped-back, acoustic sound and a personal style that stood in stark contrast to the glittery, pop landscape on the radio.
What’s remarkable about Ed’s journey is how he’s managed to evolve, without losing himself. He has experimented with new sounds and tried different genres—hip-hop, R&B, and mainstream pop. He continues to do so with the lead single Azizam (released a month ago), from his upcoming album, ‘Play.’
With his recent projects, however, we have seen him gradually embrace his older sound and go back to the folk-pop and acoustic inclined-tracks. In 2023, Ed released two introspective projects: Subtract (-) and Autumn Variations. These records felt like a homecoming: melancholic, acoustic-driven, and deeply influenced by loss, life’s fragility, and personal evolution. And now comes Old Phone, and this feels like a sucker punch in the gut when listening to it.
THE SONG AS A TRIGGERED TIME CAPSULE
The song was inspired by a real-life moment when Ed powered on an old phone he hadn’t touched since 2015—the year he was tangled in a legal dispute over his popular song, Thinking Out Loud. Back then, he’d opted to use email on his tablet and tucked the phone away. When he finally turned it on nearly a decade later, the floodgates opened: messages from friends who had passed, texts from exes, threads with estranged family members. That moment of reconnection—equal parts beautiful and haunting—became Old Phone, a track that feels less like a song and more like a time capsule of Ed’s emotional landscape.
“Conversations with my dead friends / Messages from all my exes…”
“I feel an overwhelming sadness / of all the friends I do not have left…”
“Seeing how my family has fractured/ growing up and moving on.”
As Ed said, this is a song that could’ve easily fit on his debut album, plus (+), but it needed time and life to mature into what it is now. Without that space and the life experiences, it wouldn’t have hit quite the same.
Ed even built a one-night-only pub in Ipswich called The Old Phone, where fans were invited to share their own memories—texts, photos, voicemails from their old phones. Ipswich, notably, is where Ed once saw Elton John live as a child. It was a full-circle moment for a redhead who once had a dream, now offering others the space to remember their own.
A NOD TO THE PAST
Listening to it, I found myself overwhelmed. I thought of friends I haven’t spoken to in years. Some who passed away and others who just drifted. I thought of old loves and estranged relatives: a bittersweet moment. Threads that once meant everything and now mean nothing. Or maybe everything again.
I thought of a guy from high school who was an avid fan of Ed Sheeran. He once predicted Ed would be the next big thing. I remember him singing Lego House out loud in the hallways while the rest of us barely knew who this redhead was. Today, hearing Old Phone brought me right back to that moment, back to that specific kind of youthful belief—the kind you only feel once.
In Part Two, we shall delve into a different kind of nostalgia. We shall explore youthful rebellion and the fun, carefree moments of when we were Young and Dumb.
