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Ed Sheeran wrote Shape of You for Little Mix

Written by . Published: March 10 2017

Ed Sheeran wrote hit song Shape Of You for Little Mix before keeping it for himself.


The Castle on the Hill singer originally revealed he had written the song for Rihanna, but in a new interview he admitted that he began writing the song with the Black Magic singers; Perrie Edwards, Jesy Nelson, Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Jade Thirlwall, in mind.

In a chat with BeBoxMusic, posted on Facebook, Sheeran explained the background to the song, and confessed he never wanted to record it himself.

"Do you know what, the actual story is, we started it for Little Mix originally," he started. "And then halfway through I was like, 'Actually this sounds like it could be good for Rihanna'.

"And then more of the way through we were like, 'Yeah, this is actually pretty good. We should keep it'."

The pop/dancehall tinged tune was something of a departure for the Thinking Out Loud hitmaker, and he wasn't keen on recording the song at first, which was a markedly different sound for the 26-year-old balladeer.

"I didn't want to keep it," Ed continued. "I was like, 'We should give it away, it doesn't really sound like me'. But this was way before I sunk my teeth into it and put acoustic guitars on it and made it more loop-pedal friendly."

Shape of you has been a monster hit breaking the record for the highest one-day streams for a song on Spotify, with 10,123,630 plays. It debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart in January (17) and became Sheeran's first song to debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

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