Ed Sheeran Shares Sneak Peek at New Song “Eyes Closed”: Here’s When It Arrives | Sada Elbalad | CPT PPP Coverage

English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran announced Thursday on Instagram the first single from his fifth studio album, titled “Subtract” (-), which is due for release on May 5.

The singer shared that the single “Eyes Closed” is scheduled to arrive on March 24 and added fans can catch another preview of the track over on his TikTok account.

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@edsheeran #duet with @Ed Sheeran I’ll keep dancing with my eyes closed… #NewMusic ? Eyes Closed – Ed Sheeran

The four-time Grammy winner announced the latest album on March 1. The album is the last installment in Sheeran’s decade-long mathematical album era, following 2011’s “+”, 2014’s “X”, 2017’s “÷”, and 2021’s “=”.

He stated that the forthcoming LP came to be after a series of difficult, personal events impacted his life.

“I had been working on Subtract for a decade, trying to sculpt the perfect acoustic album, writing and recording hundreds of songs with a clear vision of what I thought it should be. Then at the start of 2022, a series of events changed my life, my mental health, and ultimately the way I viewed music and art,” he shared in the album announcement.

Sheeran added: “Writing songs is my therapy. It helps me make sense of my feelings. I wrote without thought of what the songs would be, I just wrote whatever tumbled out. And in just over a week I replaced a decade’s worth of work with my deepest darkest thoughts,”

“Within the space of a month, my pregnant wife got told she had a tumour, with no route to treatment until after the birth. My best friend Jamal, a brother to me, died suddenly, and I found myself standing in court defending my integrity and career as a songwriter. I was spiralling through fear, depression and anxiety. I felt like I was drowning, head below the surface, looking up but not being able to break through for air,”.

“As an artist I didn’t feel like I could credibly put a body of work into the world that didn’t accurately represent where I am and how I need to express myself at this point in my life. This album is purely that. It’s opening the trapdoor into my soul. For the first time, I’m not trying to craft an album people will like, I’m merely putting something out that’s honest and true to where I am in my adult life, This is last February’s diary entry and my way of making sense of it. This is Subtract,” Sheeran concluded.

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“-” is produced by Aaron Dessner of the band The National. Dessner worked with Taylor Swift on her surprise 2020 album “Folklore”, which received some of her best reviews and won the Grammy for Album of the Year.

The pair wrote over 30 songs during their month-long studio stint, however, the album will include 14 tracks with folk-leaning qualities as well as full-band and orchestral arrangements.