The follow-up to Subtract consists of 14 songs written about 14 friends.
You’ve read it right, Sheerios. Our favorite redhead is back with another album—this time, it digs deep into coming to terms with the highs and lows of falling in love, depression, loneliness, and confusion.
In a post on Instagram, Ed Sheeran excitedly shared the release of his new album, Autumn Variations. In a corresponding video, the Thinking Out Loud hitmaker shared: “Hello, everyone. The sun is shining, but autumn is coming. I have an album I’ve made called Autumn Variations. This is a record that I was sort of making at the same time as Subtract. It’s what me and Aaron [Dessner] went in originally to make.”
Here’s What We Know So Far About Ed Sheeran’s Upcoming Album, ‘Autumn Variation’
Scheduled for release on September 29, Autumn Variations was inspired by Edgar Elgar’s orchestral work Enigma Variations, which was created between October 1898 and February 1899. First introduced by Ed’s father and brother, the four-time Grammy-award-winning singer-songwriter saw how fitting it was to encapsulate and convey the conversations he had with his friends.
As Ed Sheeran puts it:
“Last autumn, I found that my friends and I were going through so many changes. After the heat of summer, everything either calmed, settled, fell apart, came to a head, or imploded. When I went through a difficult time at the start of last year, writing songs helped me understand my feelings and come to terms with what was going on. When I learned about my friends’ different situations, I wrote songs, some from their perspectives, some from mine, to capture how they and I viewed the world at that time. There were highs of falling in love and new friendships among lows of heartbreak, depression, loneliness, and confusion.”
Autumn Variations is slated to arrive one week after the last leg of Ed Sheeran’s Mathematics World Tour in North America—yes, but fitting on the first day of autumn. This is his first record under his label, Gingerbread Man Records, launched in partnership with Warner Music Group in 2015.
The upcoming record was created alongside Subtract with the help of Aaron Dessner from the band The National. To recall, their partnership began with the help of Taylor Swift. The American record producer was also behind Taylor Swift’s 2020 Grammy-award-winning albums Folklore and Evermore—as well as the re-recording of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), Foolish One (Taylor’s Version), When Emma Falls in Love (Taylor’s Version), and Electric Touch (featuring Fall Out Boy) (Taylor’ Version).
With this collaboration, Ed Sheeran felt that the record captured the feeling of autumn so wonderfully. “I hope everyone loves it as much as I do.” The track list for Autumn Variations includes Magical, England, Amazing, Plastic Bag, Blue, American Town, That’s On Me, Page, Midnight, Spring, Punchline, When Will I Be Alright, The Day I Was Born, and Heads>Heels.
Feeling the chills of excitement? Don’t forget to pre-save now!
Cover image credit: Ed Sheeran
