Ed Sheeran Announces New Album ‘Autumn Variations’ To Arrive in September

The announcement came after a week of teasing new materials. “Autumn is coming.”

Autumn Variations is really coming this fall. Ed Sheeran is releasing the 14-track album on Sept. 29, making the second this year following the release of - (Subtract) in May.

Back when Subract came out, the suddenly prolific singer-songwriter said that he originally wrote a whole other set of songs, but deaths and serious illness in his family pushed him in another creative direction. Though many would jump to the conclusion that the new announcement had something to do with previously unreleased materials, that’s not true.

Ed said in a press release that the songs in Autumn Variations were newly written. “Last autumn, I found that my friends and I were going through so many life changes. After the heat of the summer, everything either calmed, settled, fell apart, came to a head, or imploded.”

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Ed Sheeran revealed that the inspiration for the 14-track Autumn Variations came from Elgar’s Enigma Variations, where each of the 14 tracks was dedicated to a different friend. The compositions were recommended to Ed by his father and brother.

After a turbulent time in his family life, Ed said that writing songs helped him understand his feelings and “come to terms with what was going on.” On Autumn Variations, he wrote about the situations his friends went through, “some from their perspectives,” and some from his. “There were highs of falling in love and new friendships among lows of heartbreak, depression, loneliness, and confusion.”

The album will be released on Ed’s own Gingerbread Man Records and produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner. “When I recorded Subtract with Aaron Dessner, we clicked immediately. We wrote and recorded non-stop and this album was born out of that partnership. I feel he has captured the feeling of autumn so wonderfully in his sonics,” said Ed.

Below is the full tracklist:

1. ‘Magical’
2. ‘England’
3. ‘Amazing’
4. ‘Plastic Bag’
5. ‘Blue’
6. ‘American Town’
7. ‘That’s On Me’
8. ‘Page’
9. ‘Midnight’
10. ‘Spring’
11. ‘Punchline’
12. ‘When Will I Be Alright’
13. ‘The Day I Was Born’
14. ‘Head > Heels’