• The song is about his childhood hometown of Framlingham, Suffolk.
He said:
"This is a love song for Suffolk, because I don’t think anyone has ever done that."
He also said:
"There's a lot of positivity in my hometown, but like, there's also a lot of sadness as well.,
Whether it be people not coming back or people passing away or people not achieving what they could've achieved,
so I just wanted to touch on it a little bit, I guess."
•
Framlingham is centred around a medieval castle, which Sheeran alludes to in this song.
Constructed by Roger Bigod, the 2nd Earl of Norfolk about 1190, it
was unusual for the time in having no central keep. Mary Tudor was living at the castle
when her half-brother Edward VI died in 1553. When she seized power, Mary collected her
forces there before successfully marching on London. Today Framlingham Castle is a popular tourist attraction.
• Ed simultaneously released this song with
Shape Of You.
He explained:
"I think it was quite hard to kind of pinpoint what song to go with to represent the album, so I thought I'd pick
two that were kind of opposing ends of the album and release them at the same time"
"And also, since I've been away, the way that albums are being released are now you have to
just kind of make up your own rules. There's no rulebook to follow, so you just have to do things
that people aren't doing, and I thought making two double A-side singles with two videos that go to radio at
the same time, it's a talking point. And even if only one of the songs works, it still got people to talk about them."