The Story Behind Ed Sheeran’s “Bad Habits” Song

Few things are more paradoxically predictable at this point than artists reinventing themselves.

On the one hand, if you play the same old songs and notes, you risk sounding stale and rote and the public becoming bored with you, or you becoming bored and burning out yourself. On the other hand, if you try and fail, you risk the public not just turning on your current reinvented persona but going back and retroactively deciding that your former songs weren’t that great to begin with.

Some self-inventions become pop culture masterpieces. Consider David Bowie and his critically acclaimed journey from Major Tom to Ziggy Stardust to The Thin White Duke. Some self-inventions become pop culture punchlines. Consider Taylor Swift’s meme-ably mocked “Look What You Made Me Do,” her most critically panned catastrophe this side of, well, Cats.

So where does Ed Sheeran’s latest vampire pop reinvention “Bad Habits” fall on that scale? To fully answer that question, we have to first look at the backstory to the song.

While, as Elton John famously put it, “Sad Songs Say So Much,” is it possible that they can be too sad and say too much in the Age of COVID? Ed Sheeran and Co. seem to think so, and that’s a big reason why “Bad Habits” exists as we know it.

It’s fair to say that few things have reshaped society as radically as the COVID pandemic. It is still ongoing with the Delta variant still fueling cases, no matter how much some people (or governments) wish to pretend otherwise. Still, with vaccination rates above 50%, and Sheeran’s native UK seeing restrictions loosen amid 75% of adults having received two vaccines as of the 11^th of August, the mood around COVID has changed.

While nobody should be talking about “the end of the pandemic” just yet, it’s those restrictions loosening and accompanying good mood we have to thank for “Bad Habits.” At least that’s part of the inspiration, as related by Sheeran himself. As Rolling Stone reports, Sheeran and his producers initially conceived of another acoustic song in the vein of his past guitar-strumming hits. His acoustic style’s what tends to lead searches for Ed Sheeran sheet music.

However, the UK’s announcement post-February 2021 that they aimed to open up in June made them second guess that decision, with Sheeran himself saying “I was like, ‘I don’t know if the world needs a depressing sad, slow acoustic song when it’s all opening up.’”

Fast forward to June 25^th, when Sheeran appeared on James Corden’s Late Late Show to debut the song on TV. In one sense, it was classic Sheeran, acoustic guitar and all. However, the song itself was a departure from earlier, slower, often more melancholic entries in Sheeran’s discography. Despite the content of the song (as noted below) still touching on more serious themes, there’s no denying that the music itself is a bit more pop-friendly and upbeat than previous Sheeran songs.

This is by design, and a direct response to the fear of sounding two downbeat amidst the upbeat mood anticipated by the UK’s planned reopening following loosening COVID restrictions. As Sheeran puts it, “I was in the studio and we created this song and it’s just fun, I think.”

Hence why “Bad Habits” sheet music looks and sounds different, as the song’s meant to be a fun beat fit for good times set to a song all about “Bad Habits” and the negative feelings that accompany them.

Those eased-up COVID restrictions had a big impact on the music video itself. The past year-plus of the pandemic and the prohibition against large crowds that’s come with it has extended to the music world. They have made concerts and large group scenes such as those seen in “Bad Habits” impossible until recently, making them all the more noticeable here.

Then there’s the content of the music video itself. Months before the song’s release, on April 23^rd, Sheeran was spotted dressed as a vampire in London during the filming of the video. Two weeks before its release, on June 11^th, a blown-up image of Sheeran in his pink-blazered vampiric getup graced the Tate Modern.

His vampiric appearance in the song is certainly fitting given the song’s focus on late night activities. Besides the obvious association of vampires with the night and its “Bad Habits,” there’s musical precedent for such supernaturally nocturnal turns, from “Werewolves of London” to Michael Jackson’s dancing zombies in the legendary music video to “Thriller.”

And as in “Thriller,” Sheeran juxtaposes typically dark imagery with a musically upbeat bop of a pop song, with both music videos only reinforcing the songs’ aura of danger tinged with excitement. The world’s full of songs about one or the other. It’s the ability to present the paradoxical paradigm between the two which makes Sheeran’s song and music video stand out.

While in some ways “Bad Habits” is a pop-ier departure from Sheeran’s usual style, in other ways it’s a continuation of themes he’s explored before. For as different as they may be musically, there’s definitely a thematic drinking and substance use-based through-line from an earlier work like “Drunk” and “Castle on a Cloud” to “Bad Habits” tackling that subject matter in lines like:

“My bad habits lead to late nights, endin’ alone

Conversations with a stranger I barely know

Swearin’ this will be the last, but it probably won’t

I got nothin’ left to lose, or use, or do.”

Lines such as those would fit right in with previous Sheeran songs’ focus on substances’ effects on their users and difficulty connecting with others. The latter is an irony with which anyone who’s had enough drink-swilling, hit-taking, club-hopping late nights will be familiar. There’s a special kind of loneliness that comes from being lost in a crowd, a kind of ironic melancholic negativity that comes from being surrounded by pulse-pounding positivity.

And indeed, Capital FM likewise speculated that this new musical tone may signal what’s to come with Sheeran’s upcoming album, Minus, an inversion of his best-selling album Plus. Then there’s how the song connects to Sheeran’s personal background. As with countless new parents before him, Sheeran recounted in a BBC interview how parenthood caused him to reassess his priorities and “what [he] was putting into [his] body, be it food or alcohol.”

Another lyric in the song referring to how “Nothing happens after two” may also have a double meaning drawing on Sheeran’s personal life. In that same interview, Sheeran noted how he used to favor late-night recording sessions more, ones which would finish at, yes, 2am. With the birth of his child, however, he has since changed to more traditional work hours.

And yet it’d be easy for Sheeran to make an overly moralistic song about how parenthood has caused him to turn his back on debauchery. “Bad Habits” isn’t that. Nor is it a pure party anthem for the end of COVID because COVID isn’t fully conquered, just as we so rarely conquer our “Bad Habits” in life.

Sheeran has made a career out of walking a tightrope between popularity and complexity. Artists who attempt to reinvent themselves and fail often veer too much towards one more the other, usually trying to overcompensate for a perceived lack in either direction.

Just as his music video alter ego, Sheeran soars above that dichotomy with a song that responds to his musical past, has been shaped by our COVID-riddled present, and has fans and critics eagerly anticipating the future of his musical “habits.”

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