The A Team : Ed Sheeran’s Crowning Moment
Of all the pieces of this series I’ve written so far this one is the best definition of what I call a “Crowning Moment”.
On the 12th of June 2011, Edward Christopher Sheeran announced his arrival to the unknowns & the musical world and released the first single from his debut studio album +, “The A-Team” with lyrics I can only define as generational.
Little did anyone know that a 20-year-old guy from the remote Suffolk County could write lyrics like these.
“The A-Team” rocked the UK Singles Charts by debuting on number 3 while also taking over the world by becoming a top 10 single in Australia, Germany, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, Norway and multiple others.
The song earnt Ed 2 major awards at the 2012 Brits with the Best Solo Artist of 2012 & the Breakthrough act of the year, while also earning him his first Grammy nomination that too for one of the most prestigious one’s the Grammy for Record Of The Year.
At the very same Grammy Awards, Ed Sheeran performed the song with Sir Elton John who ran Ed’s management company. Ed was originally denied the chance to perform with Sir Elton as the recording academy thought he “too little of an artist” to perform with someone of the stature of Sir Elton but Sir Elton being Sir Elton they performed an iconic piece at the award show.
Unbeknownst to Sheeran, The A-Team opened more doors than a music artist could ever even dream of and he deserved every fibre of it.
But what made The A-Team what it truly is?
Let’s take a deciphering look. Here We Go!
Background -
Speaking to Absolute Radio in 2011 Sheeran said —
“ “The A-Team” came from an experience I had when I did a gig at a homeless shelter, I was 18 at the time and being naïve, I was taken aback by some of the stories I had heard. I got home that night and I just wrote a lot of lyrics. I just wanted to write it so it sounded kind of upbeat so you wouldn’t really know what’s it actually about because it’s quite a dark subject.”
Speaking to the Billboard in a video interview Sheeran stated -
“ The A-Team was written on the experiences of a woman named Angel who he met at the shelter when talking to her she told me she’s a member of the “class A team”. A drug like crack cocaine is called a “Class A Drug” the same category as cocaine it was her way of covering up her story of addiction in a more subtle way.”
The accompanying music video was shot for £40 in London giving an astoundingly good visual representation.
Let’s take a look at the lyrics. Here We Go Again!
Verse -1
White lips, pale face
Breathing in snowflakes
Burnt lungs sour taste
The track begins with the description of Angel the protagonist of the track named after the woman Sheeran wrote the song on when he met her back at the homeless shelter.
Angel is described as kind of a weak person physically with white lips and a white & weak pale complexion and her rotten lungs and bad taste buds due to the addiction which is taking her body bit by bit.
Light’s gone, days end
Struggling to pay rent
Long nights, strange men
The story of Angel starts to take a darker turn when we come to know about her day to day life as a prostitute and a person deep inside the realms of cocaine addiction, how she goes through her day without actively doing anything, nearly bankrupt leaving her with only one option.
Pre Chorus -
They say
She’s in the Class A-Team
Stuck in her day dream
Been this way since 18
When Sheeran tries to find out more about her he gets just one phrase out from someone else that she’s member of the class A Team stuck in her very own alternate reality created by the intake of drugs inside her kind of what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes did with his “mind palace”.
Sheeran gets to know that this has been the way since her addiction started back when she was just 18yrs old.
But lately , her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries
And they scream
The worst things in life come free to us
Sheeran continues on by saying her health is getting worse by the day as the cocaine overcome her body slowly getting into each every corner of her and destroying each part of her fraction by fraction.
Each part of her body continues to scream for the drug to stop but at the very same time asking for it more and more and in the end excusing it by just saying bad things are inevitable and it can no longer fight it off accepting defeat.
Chorus-
“Cause we’re just under the upper hand
And go mad for a couple grams
And she don’t wanna go outside tonight
He continues on by saying how it was cocaine for Angel but each one of us has an upper hand over us whether it’s a sin or something else but there’s always a force ( which he’s materialised by calling them a couple of grams ) over us forcing us to do something wrong even though when we don’t want to but we still do ( forcing us to go outside of our minds ) .
And in a pipe, she flies to the motherland
Sells love to another man
It’s too cold outside for angels to fly
Angels to fly
The story continues on showing us another face of Angel when she’s under the prowess of drugs how she goes to dark places even though she doesn’t want to just for money.
Verse-2
Ripped gloves, raincoat
Tried to swim and stay afloat
Dry house, wet clothes
Weary eyed, dry throat
Call girl, no phone
Angel’s conditions are brought further into the light how she tries to get out of the depths of her addictions but ends up drowning further & further because she has no support from anybody leaving her to live in bad conditions which go worse by worse everyday.
Pre Chorus repeat
Chorus repeat
Bridge
An Angel will die
Covered in white
Closed eyes hoping for a better life
This time, we’ll fade out tonight
Straight down the line
Angel’s story finally ceases. when she finally decides to give up just waiting for death covered in the white of cocaine closing her eyes for the final time somehow hoping for a better life when she opens them up again but it’s the end of the road and the world finally loses one of it’s Angels.
Pre Chorus repeat
Chorus repeat
Iconic isn’t it?
Ed Sheeran later went on to collaborate with Taylor Swift for her 4th studio album Red’s track “Everything Has Changed” while also opening for Taylor’s headlining “Red World Tour” putting Sheeran on the map for the one’s who somehow we’re living under a rock and didn’t know him already.
In 2014 Ed Sheeran released his second studio album with x ( pronounce multiply ) with the lead single “Sing” a track which showcased his versatility by rapping and creating a pop piece.
x later went on to produce two magical pieces the first being “Don’t” and the second being the all iconic masterwork “Thinking Out Loud” for which Ed finally won the Grammy for Record of the Year.
On 6th January 2017 Ed dropped 2 singles from his third album “divide” the first one “Castle On The Hill” being a personal story of his childhood and youth with time with his friends and how far they’ve come today.
That very same day Ed Sheeran dropped arguably the biggest song of the 2010s with “Shape Of You” with a catchy opening & hooky chord progression he produced a single with success like the world couldn’t have ever dreamt of.
In 2019 he closed out the decade with No 6 Collaborations Project a very unique album with tracks which featured the biggest artists in the world like Justin Bieber & Camilla Cabello while creating “Remember The Name” with his biggest childhood idols Eminem & 50 cent.
