Divide and Ed Sheeran's Tributes to Strong Women

Here’s another confession, I have a soft spot for two things: ginger haired boys and tattoo sleeves. That along with musical ability, and I am all in. So it’s only logical that I have a mad crush on British pop artist, Ed Sheeran. For a feminist blog, it might seem a bit strange to be writing about a male artist, but his new album Divide caught my attention for a couple of reasons.

There are three songs on the new album that really stuck a chord with me for a variety of reasons. Two are heartfelt tributes to his grandmothers and the other song is an expression of his admiration for a woman for something other than her looks and beauty.

The first song I want to talk about is “Galway Girl.” This pop song uses traditional Irish music to tell the story of the singer’s (which may or may not be Ed himself) meeting with an Irish girl in a pub. While he does refer to her as “my pretty little Galway girl” in the chorus of the song, throughout the verses he sings of her playing fiddle, the drinks she drinks, and her own musical ability. It’s a fun song that’s about those nights when you meet someone at a bar who you connect with about something other than the physical. It’s not a song about love or lust. It’s ultimately about the power of music to connect people from different backgrounds in almost magical ways.

The next song that I want to talk about is “Supermarket Flowers,” Sheeran’s tribute to his late maternal grandmother. It is heartbreaking in its approach to dealing with the mundane tasks that comes after the death of a loved one. We all have lost someone in our lives that meant so much to us. Often when that loss is expressed in song, the lyrics tend to focus on the loss itself and emotional aftermath. Sheeran chose to explore this emotion through his mother’s eyes as she went through her own mother’s belongings. The first time I heard this song I felt every ounce of the genuine pain of that moment when you realize that a loved one really is gone.

The final song from the album that really struck a chord with me was the tribute to his paternal grandmother and grandfather, “Nancy Mulligan.” This song tells the tale of his paternal grandparents’ love story. His grandfather was a Protestant from Northern Ireland, and his grandmother a Catholic from the South of Ireland. They eloped because her parents did not approve of the marriage and ended up living in Wexford. This was a time known to most as “The Troubles.” Leave it to the Irish to refer to what was ultimately a Civil War as something that underplays the true nature of the conflict.

The thing that I ultimately love about Ed Sheeran is that even when he is at his pop best in terms of writing music that appeals to a broad base, there is still something that comes across as truly genuine. As a woman, I never feel like I am object of affection rather than person. Sometimes, in love songs, it can feel as though the party being loved is just there as an object on which to bestow affection rather than a person involved in a give-and-take relationship. It never feels like the women in his songs are passive recipients of affection.