Ed Sheeran songwriting analysis (Bad Habits)

What I Learned From: Ed Sheeran songwriting analysis:

The new song ‘Bad Habits’ by Ed Sheeran surprised me quite a bit to say the least. Especially when it comes to the arrangement, it caught my attention straight away. It seems that a smart arrangement is more important than ever nowadays. Together with a music production that changes evey couple of bars, this seems to be the future of a lot of pop music and electronic music.

How he writes a song is different with each one of course. So a fixed Ed Sheeran songwriting conclusion would be strange. But ‘Bad Habits’ has some very nice hidden tricks up it’s sleeve. For example one thing that I really like is that the song opens with a very moody texture and sound. The creative thing is that they manage to repeat it throughout multiple parts of the song in an almost hypnotic way. Also there is some lovely melodic ambiguity as well as subtle melodic dissonance that is present in the song.

About the series ‘What I Learned From’:

What I Learned From is a songwriting and music analysis series. I analyse music to find techniques and aspects that interest me and catch my attention. I try to deliver this information in a as concise manner as possible. This way you can easily use all information to create music and not be distracted by complicated music theory.

►Link to the song Bad Habits by Ed Sheeran:

https://youtu.be/orJSJGHjBLI

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Timestamps:

Below are the timestamps for the video in case you want to skip to a certain part or want to revisit a step.

0:00 – Intro
0:28 – What I find special about Bad Habits
1:02 – The ambiguous repeated Pluck Pattern
2:45 – The smart and effective Arrangement/Production
4:52 – The dissonant/moody Verse Melody