October 27, 2023

Music Friday: Ed Sheeran Carves a Pendant and Yearns for a Ring in ‘Wake Me Up’

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you awesome songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, Ed Sheeran carves a heart pendant and yearns for a wedding ring in his “really silly” love song, “Wake Me Up.”

Appearing as the fifth track from his debut studio album called + (“Plus”), “Wake Me Up” is essentially a musical love letter Sheeran wrote to his ex-girlfriend just after their breakup. The English singer/songwriter outlines many of the characteristics and idiosyncrasies that made her so endearing during their 3 1/2-year relationship.

Sheeran told The Sun, “I picked out every little thing about my ex-girlfriend that I thought was wicked (i.e. awesome) and put it into a song. There’s a lyric about New Year’s Day on Southwold Beach when I made her a necklace from two bits of chalk, which I carved into a heart.”

Here’s how he describes the scene…

“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 / So you just need to breathe / To feel my heart against yours now / Against yours now.”

Sheeran also fantasizes about wearing a wedding band on the ring finger of his left hand. In a beautifully turned phrase, Sheeran sings, “See I could do without a tan / On my left hand, where my fourth finger meets my knuckle / And I should run you a hot bath / And fill it up with bubbles.”

According to SongFacts.com, Sheeran penned “Wake Me Up” while poolside at the California residence of actor/singer/songwriter/comedian Jamie Foxx in 2010. Foxx had met Sheeran through a chance encounter at an open-mic night and was so impressed by his talent and potential that he invited Sheeran to perform on his radio show and to use his home recording studio.

During a live UStream performance in 2011, Sheeran admitted to being “mashed up” (drunk) while writing this “really silly” love song.

Born in Hebden Bridge, England, in 1991, Sheeran sang in a church choir with his mother starting at the age of 4. He was inspired to pursue music as a career after having the opportunity to chat with Irish singer/songwriter Damien Rice. Although Sheeran was only 11 at the time, he still remembers the profound impact the meeting had on his life.

“I had a little bit of a chat and kind of had an epiphany, like ‘Wow, this is exactly what I want to do!’” Sheeran told The Telegraph. “I got home that night and wrote a whole bunch of songs. I remember one was called ‘Typical Average Teen.’ Yeah, I was one of those.”

At the age of 17, Sheeran moved to London, where he played small venues. In 2010, he bought a ticket to Los Angeles with no contacts or solid leads. All that changed when he met Foxx. Soon after, Sheeran was signed by Asylum Records.

His breakthrough song, “The A Team,” was nominated for Song of the Year at the 2013 Grammy Awards. A year later, he was nominated for Best New Artist at the 2014 Grammy Awards. Sheeran has since blossomed into one of the world’s best-selling music artists with more than 150 million records sold.

Please check out the video of Sheeran’s live performance of “Wake Me Up.” The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along.

“Wake Me Up”
Written by Ed Sheeran and Jake Gosling. Performed by Ed Sheeran.

I should ink my skin
With your name
And take my passport out again
And just replace it

See I could do without a tan
On my left hand, where my fourth finger meets my knuckle
And I should run you a hot bath
And fill it up with bubbles

‘Cause maybe you’re lovable
And maybe you’re my snowflake
And your eyes turn from green to gray and in the winter I’ll
Hold you in a cold place
And you should never cut your hair
‘Cause I love the way you flick it off your shoulder

And you will never know just how beautiful you are to me
But maybe I’m just in love when you wake me up

And would you ever feel guilty
If you did the same to me
Would you make me a cup of tea
To open my eyes in the right way
And I know you love Shrek
‘Cause we’ve watched it 12 times
But maybe you’re hoping for a fairy tale too
And if your DVD breaks, today
You shoulda got a VCR
‘Cause I never owned a Blu-Ray
True say

And now I’ve always been s*** at computer games and your brother always beats me
And if I lost, I go all cross
And chuck all the controllers at the TV
And then you’d laugh at me
And be asking me
If I’m gonna be home next week
And then you’d lie with me till I fall asleep
And flutter eyelash on my cheek between the sheets

And you will never know just how beautiful you are to me
But maybe I’m just in love when you wake me up

I think you hate the smell of smoke
You always try’na get me to stop
But you drink as much as me
And I get drunk a lot

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
So you just need to breathe
To feel my heart against yours now
Against yours now

‘Cause maybe I’m just in love when you wake me up

Or maybe I’m just in love when you wake me up
Maybe I fell in love when you woke me up