Jam Journal: “Cold Coffee” warms my heart

Ed Sheeran. Red-haired, English, seemingly obsessed with math symbols, lovesick, hyper-mainstream — maybe. 

I don’t want to be so presumptuous to assume at least one of those adjectives popped in your head when you thought of the man that brought us the timelessly romantic zinger that is “Perfect,” but I bet I got a few right. In 2022, Sheeran’s the kind of artist you hear about in passing when he releases a video of himself as a faux-glam vampire or when he’s sued by Marvin Gaye for $100 million … oh, Ed. 

I’m not writing this installment to platform Sheeran — God knows he doesn’t need it. We all inevitably know him — either having grown up on his emotion-driven “X” and “÷” albums, or maybe despising him from an arms-length away because he’s always on the radio and yeah, it gets a little annoying. I’m writing, instead, to posit that we need to set aside what we think we know about Ed Sheeran and revisit him in his near-purest form — i.e. acoustic, English-sensibility Sheeran — and soak up all the autumnal vibes of his pre-2015 *works of art.* 

But, I must preface: I do not condone Sheeran rapping, as he’s done several times throughout his career. Okay, let’s proceed.

I’ve been a devoted listener of Sheeran since my preteen days: laying in bed reading “Harry Potter” while listening to “I See Fire” from the “The Hobbit” soundtrack on repeat for two hours was once my favorite pastime. 

Sheeran’s songs remain my main means of connection with one of my best friends from childhood, who once named a pet fish “Nancy” after “Nancy Mulligan,” and with whom I still belt out the entirety of “Castle on the Hill” while she sticks her head out of the skylight of my car on the freeway. 

“Lego House” and “A-Team,” two of his more widely-known earlier tracks off of “+,” have served as the perfect coming-of-age soundtrack over the course of my bumpy adolescence. 

Considering my storied history with Sheeran’s music, it was to my great surprise and delight that I discovered the gems that are songs like “She,” “Cold Coffee,” “Autumn Leaves” and “Fall” (could it get more October than these song titles?) are just in time for my favorite season this year. 

Chord progressions warm enough to spark a fire on a cold fall day — not like we’ve gotten any here in L.A. yet, but still — and oh-so-sweet lyrics I can pretend someone wrote about me define the songs on Sheeran’s “5” and “+,” which debuted in 2015 and 2011, respectively. I mean, “She’s like cold coffee in the morning”? That lyric rivals Andrew Garfield’s internet-famous description of Emma Stone as a “shot of espresso.” 

Sheeran’s earlier works also bare a great deal more of his raw, lovelorn songwriter side than most newer songs, though I’ll defend “Bad Habits” any day and have cried to “Supermarket Flowers” on several plane rides. The nearly-nine-minute-long ballad, “Give Me Love” — on which Sheeran wails and screams from the depths of his soul about wanting to be loved — spoke to 13-year-old me more than I’d like to admit. 

Whether you’re heartbroken, in love, yearning, homesick, suffering from existential angst or just one of those people who enjoys listening to soul-wrenching music despite being in a good mood, these songs are for you. 

If I haven’t persuaded you into popping in your headphones and channeling Sheeran’s smooth, earthy voice into your ears, that’s fine: I’d never force anyone to listen to my favorite music (though some of my friends may beg to differ after hearing me often ask, “Can I play this one song for you?,” absolutely rhetorically). If you do heed my words, though, I hope that you, too, find pieces of yourself in the gold mine of Sheeran’s discography.

“Jam Journal” is a rotating column featuring a new Daily Trojan editor in each installment commenting on the music most important to them.