We all know that Taylor Swift is the pop music world’s resident superhero. Flying around, helping her fans in all sorts of ways like, say, paying off their college loan debts and just being generally awesome and likeable.
But spare a little bit of awe and admiration for Ed Sheeran. He may not command the same kind of good guy reputation as his buddy Swift, but according to a report via Time Magazine, Sheeran helped pay off a friend’s mortgage with a song.
Speaking to The Mirror, Sheeran revealed that he penned his hit single ‘Thinking Out Loud’ during a songwriting session he held as a favour to childhood pal and fellow singer Amy Wadge when she was going through some financial troubles.
“[Wadge] was going through financial troubles about a year ago,” Sheeran said. “She drove to my house – my album was nearly done – and she asked if I could put a song from when I was 17 on the deluxe album, so she could get a little bit of money and pay the mortgage and bills and stuff.”
“While she was there, we wrote ‘Thinking Out Loud’,” he added. If you’re unfamiliar with the Sheeran oeuvre, ‘Thinking Out Loud’ is a track that appeared on Sheeran’s second album, X, which just so happened to be the most-streamed album in the world for 2014.
The album has also been certified 8× Platinum in the UK, with sales of over 2.4 million copies, making it one of the best selling albums in the history of the United Kingdom, as well as 7× Platinum in Australia, 3× Platinum in Canada, and Platinum in the US.
Meanwhile, the song itself was chosen as a single to promote the album and didn’t fare too shabbily either. It became Sheeran’s second Number 1 single, spending 19 weeks in the chart, and has been certified 3× Platinum, with sales of over 1 million copies in the UK alone.
“Now she never has to worry about money again,” Sheeran told The Mirror. There’s a lesson to be learnt here: if you ever find yourself in a spot of financial difficulty, just ask Ed Sheeran to collaborate on a hit single with you.
