‘Shape of You’ singer Ed Sheeran recently picked up a guitar and briefly sang for the Manhattan courtroom.
During the trial settling the case of whether the singer’s ‘Thinking Out Loud’ plagiarized the Marvin Gaye hit “Let’s Get It On”.
Furthermore, Sheeran performed a bit of what he said was the first version of “Thinking Out Loud,” as he and co-writer Amy Wadge developed it together at his home in England. The song’s hook lyric was exactly as he sang it “I’m singing out now.”
According to the media, Sheeran testified, “When I write vocal melodies, it’s like phonetics,” and showed “singing out now” became “thinking out loud.”
Undergoing the examination from his attorney, Ilene Farkas, Sheeran described the composing of the song in the year 2014 as a quick and not deeply thought-out process.
Therefore, he stated that he just emerged from the shower when he heard Wadge playing guitar chords and was drawn to join her to start developing them into a song.
He stated, “I remember thinking we have to do something with that”, and “Amy definitely started strumming the chords…” Of the process, which Sheeran said took “really not that long”, “We sat guitar to guitar. We wrote together quite a lot.”
As per the sources, contention in the trial is the plaintiffs’ assertion that “Let’s Get It On” and “Thinking Out Loud” are rooted in the same 4 chords.
Furthermore, the defense played in court a video from a British television show that was meant to demonstrate that the same 4 chords could be the basis of an infinite number of songs.
The video played during Sheeran’s attorneys’ cross-examination of Dr. Alexander Stewart, a musicologist brought in by the plaintiffs, who previously testified that the 2 songs have a substantial similarity.
Therefore, the Court adjourned in the midst of Sheeran’s testimony, and the trial will return on Monday with the singer back on the stand to undergo cross-examination.
Therefore, ED Sheeran, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music Publishing are being sued by 3 heirs of songwriter Ed Townsend, who is the credited co-writer with Gaye on 1973’s “Let’s Get It On.”
