In late March, Ed Sheeran quietly began the ultimate archival photo dump. He started a new Instagram account @teddysoldphone and started sharing a series of old images (including his first live show), and even had some notes apps, text messages and email screenshots.
While the account gained some traction among Sheeran diehards, the singer-songwriter finally brought wide attention to it today, April 29. He explained that all the images came from a phone he stopped using in 2015 (choosing to switch to email “full time”) but was compelled to turn on again during the discovery process for the “Thinking Out Loud” copyright infringement lawsuit (which Sheeran won in 2023).
Sheeran explained in the new note that the first thing he encountered when he turned on the old phone was a message from his late friend Jamal Edwards, who died in 2022.
"It felt like a time capsule, the age of life I was in and lived in 2015," Sheeran wrote. "Opening it really caught me and I found myself scrolling messages and conversations with people who are no longer here. I found myself crying to my now dead friends and I won't talk to them anymore. I found photos of my old man with people at the time, but we've lost contact since then.
This experience inspired Sheeran to write a new song, aptly titled "Old Phone," which he will be released on Thursday, May 1. Sheeran said he wrote the song at 2 a.m., "and Jet finished the album behind India" and then recorded the album later that morning.
"It feels like a song that should be on my debut album, but I didn't write a song until I went through what happened in real life," Sheeran said. "It makes me sing and I hope it will find some emotions in you too. Maybe it will let you switch to your old phone and see where you were ten years ago. No matter what it does, I'm glad I wrote it."
"Old Cell Phone" will mark Sheeran's second single this year, after which "Azizam" was released earlier this month. Both songs are expected to appear on Sheeran's upcoming album Playthis is not a release date, but will be his first album since 2023 - (minus) and Autumn changes.