Ed Sheeran Gives Update on Tough Times with Wife Cherry on New Album Play

Ed Sheeran is opening up like never before on his new album Play.

The singer-songwriter, 34, released his latest record on Friday, Sept. 12 — and the album’s lyrical content seemingly pulls back the curtain on his life as a husband to wife Cherry Seaborn and as a dad to their daughters Lyra, 5, and Jupiter, 3.

Sheeran kicks off Play with a song called “Opening,” which references both the 2022 death of his close friend Jamal Edwards and Seaborn’s 2022 cancer diagnosis.

“It’s a long way up from rock bottom/There’s been times I felt I could fall further/I have loved and lost and feared and prayed/But now the day bursts wild and open,” he sings. “I have cried tears at my brother’s grave/I have shaken hands with my wife’s surgeon/I spent weeks inside the darkest cage.”

Later on the track, Sheeran wonders if Edwards is “proud” of him, and admits that he’s got to “keep it together for my daughters.” Lyra also gets a shout-out as Sheeran laments the lack of privacy that comes with being a superstar: “Never pushed Ly on a swing/I gotta wear disguises.”

Despite all he’s been through, the song ends on an uplifting note, with Sheeran saying that as his inner circle shrinks, “All I need is Chez and my daughters and a few friends that help me.”

Elsewhere on the record, he professes his love for Seaborn, 33, on a number of different songs, each more romantic than the next; “Camera” is about how he doesn’t need a camera to capture her beauty, while “In Other Words” is about how he loves every part of her, even the part that leaves “your clothes around our house.”

“Slowly” is about how hard it is to say goodbye during stretches apart, while “The Vow,” a waltzy romantic ode to his promise to Seaborn, is bound to be the next “Thinking Out Loud” when it comes to wedding first dances. “For Always,” meanwhile, is a sweet ode to his dedication to his daughters and how he’ll be there for them “for always.”

The Grammy winner offers a look at the not-so-rosy parts of their marriage, though, on the song “Regrets,” which is featured on Play’s deluxe vinyl edition. The song, along with other deluxe tracks “Problems” and “War Game,” is about loving someone, but dealing with repeated fights.

On the track, Sheeran sings about putting a drink to his lips and sighing, wondering why their lives feel like they’re “on a Slip ‘N Slide” and describing their love as a “mess.”

“Kids, they add stress/Work ain’t workin’ the best/But that ain’t the explanation why this love is a mess,” he sings. “I guess priorities are prioritized over time/And the only moments we spend are sleepin’ side by side/Mornin’ breaks, same old nags and complaints/I’m just tryna drink my coffee/If we engage, then we’ll be late.”

On the chorus of the song, Sheeran confesses his “regrets” as he sings about there being “distance when we’re right here,” and later sings to his daughters, who are too young to understand why he can’t be home more.

“You’re too young to understand that Daddy’s coming home/Every time I leave the house you think I’m forever gone,” he sings. “Guess it’s from the hundred calls, goodnights on the telephone/See this tour, I’ve gotta get it done, but why though?/Always said I’d pause work as soon as you came/Without structure, I just slipped into depression again/This is just one of the things that I could never explain.”

He goes on to talk about how he “aimed to be the best dad here, but missed the mark, breakin’ both you and your sister’s heart, and your mother’s too,” thanks to his absences.

Sheeran concludes that his work needs to take a backseat to his family life: “I gotta stop puttin’ work so far in front of you/’Cause there is so much more love that a man can lose/Tryna get back what I’ve lost/Sittin’ here and all I’ve got is regrets.”

Elsewhere on the song, the star sings about how his fame has affected his relationship with his mother Imogen, and why he hopes that his daughters don’t have similar problems with him.

“Hope and pray that both my little girls, they ain’t the same as us/Missed out on so much, I really need to make it up/Take you on a plane and just, you know/I wish there was more one-on-one, and you didn’t share your son,” he sings. “I wish you didn’t have to move away, but that sorta thing comes/When your identity shifts from bein’ mum and Imogen/To havin’ my stage name in front when you talk to anyone.”