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Ed Sheeran’s 10 Best Lyrics That Warm (Or Break) Your Heart

Singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran knows how to make some of the saddest lines upbeat. His lyricism is top-tier, accompanied by his acoustic guitar and infectious pop melodies, and the Brit often…

Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran attends the GQ Men of the Year awards 2021 at the Palace Hotel on November 11, 2021 in Madrid, Spain.

Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images

Singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran knows how to make some of the saddest lines upbeat. His lyricism is top-tier, accompanied by his acoustic guitar and infectious pop melodies, and the Brit often strikes musical gold. Born Edward Christopher Sheeran on February 17, 1991, in England, he developed an interest in music at a very young age. He sang at a local church choir at the age of four. As we previously reported, Sheeran developed a stutter after undergoing surgery to remove a birthmark in his early years. He was gifted Eminem's The Marshall Mathers album as a kid by his uncle. The album helped him to grow out of it. When he was nine, his uncle told his dad his nephew would be "the next Bob Dylan." After learning the 2000 record and "rapping it back, to back, to back, to back," it cured his stutter.

Sheeran's Rise To Stardom

Gaining more confidence, Sheeran learned how to play the guitar and started writing songs when he was eleven. Two years later, at thirteen, Sheeran began recording music. He independently released his first collection of work, titled Spinning Man. In 2008, he moved to London, playing music in small venues and on the street. That same year, he auditioned for the ITV series Britannia High. Since the show's producers were looking for triple threats, Sheeran's dance skills proved to be highly uncoordinated, so he got cut. He wasn't too torn up about it, able to admit that everyone auditioning really wanted to be cast.

He released another EP in 2009, titled You Need Me. He and fellow English singer Leddra Chapman recorded covers with each other often, including CeeLo Green's "F--- You." In 2010, Sheeran released his critically acclaimed Loose Change EP, which featured his future debut single, "The A-Team."

With seven studio albums below his belt, see which of our favorite Ed Sheeran songs warms (or breaks) our hearts.

10. Drunk

GettyImages-888577400.jpgMike Coppola/Getty Images

From Ed's 2011 '+ (Plus)' album, he cleverly sings, "On cold days cold plays out like the band's name. I know I can't heal things with a handshake." The singer-songwriter than admits he knows what he can change, but he's been cut wide open like a landscape. The lines, "Open bottles of beer but never champagne, to applaud you with the sound that my hands make," he chooses beer over champagne, which is used to celebrate something.


9. The A Team

GettyImages-926252054.jpgPaul Kane/Getty Images

The worst things in life come free to us / 'Cause we're just under the upper hand / And go mad for a couple grams

Ed Sheeran’s 10 Best Lyrics That Warm (Or Break) Your Heart


8. Wake Me Up

GettyImages-1235946549.jpgYui Mok - WPA Pool/Getty Images

So I'll take you to the beach and walk along the sand / And I'll make you a heart pendant with a pebble held in my hand / And I'll carve it like a necklace / So the heart falls where your chest is / And now a piece of me is a piece of the beach and it falls just where it needs to be and rests peacefully.

Ed Sheeran’s 10 Best Lyrics That Warm (Or Break) Your Heart


7. I'm A Mess

GettyImages-1339366860.jpgGerardo Mora/Getty Images

And all of my hopes / All of my own words / Are all over written on the signs / But you're on my road / Walking me home.

Ed Sheeran’s 10 Best Lyrics That Warm (Or Break) Your Heart


6. Thinking Out Loud

GettyImages-931549212.jpgNoam Galai/Getty Images

When your legs don't work like they used to before / And I can't sweep you off of your feet / Will your mouth still remember the taste of my love? Will your eyes still smile from your cheeks?

Ed Sheeran’s 10 Best Lyrics That Warm (Or Break) Your Heart


5. Photograph

GettyImages-1354307361.jpgAnthony Devlin/Getty Images

We keep this love in a photograph / We made these memories for ourselves / Where our eyes are never closing / Hearts are never broken / And time's forever frozen, still.

Ed Sheeran’s 10 Best Lyrics That Warm (Or Break) Your Heart


4. Shirtsleeves

GettyImages-937241620.jpgPhil Walter/Getty Images

And I'll hold on to the words you spoke of / Anchored down in the throat, love / And I'm captain of this sinking boat now / With just one armband to carry me home.

Ed Sheeran’s 10 Best Lyrics That Warm (Or Break) Your Heart


3. Hearts Don't Break Around Here

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Took my heart upon a one way trip / Guess she went wandering off with it / None like most women I know / This one will bring it back whole.

Ed Sheeran’s 10 Best Lyrics That Warm (Or Break) Your Heart


2. U.N.I.

GettyImages-1342505408.jpgMarc Piasecki/Getty Images

And I don't get waves of missing you anymore / They're more like tsunami tides in my eyes / Never getting dry, so I get high / Smoke away the days, never sleep with the light on / Weeks pass in the blink of an eye

Ed Sheeran’s 10 Best Lyrics That Warm (Or Break) Your Heart


1. Bad Habits

GettyImages-1358336922.jpgJamie McCarthy/Getty Images

My bad habits lead to late nights endin' alone / Conversations with a stranger I barely know / Swearin' this will be the last, but it probably won't / I got nothin' left to lose, or use, or do.

Ed Sheeran’s 10 Best Lyrics That Warm (Or Break) Your Heart