Till dom ensamma
"Till dom ensamma" is a song written and recorded by Mauro Scocco for his 1991 studio album "Dr. Space dagbok", and released as a single the same year. The song charted at Svensktoppen for 22 weeks between 8 December 1991-10 May 1992, topping the chart. It also peaked at number 12 on the Swedish Singles Chart.
Other recordings.
Date participated at Dansbandskampen 2009, performing the song, and they also recorded it for their 2010 album "Här och nu!".
References.
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Mauro Scocco
Swedish musician (born 1962)
Mauro Scocco (born 11 September 1962) is a Swedish pop musician of Italian descent. He has been described as "one of the sharpest songwriters in Sweden". Scocco was the singer for the pop group Ratata (1980–83) transformed into a duo with Johan Ekelund (1983–89). After Ratata, Scocco has continued as a solo artist since. In 2014, he cooperated with Plura Jonsson releasing a joint album as "Mauro & Plura".
Early life and career.
Scocco was born in Fristad in Borås. He grew up in Stockholm and in Borås. Scocco formed the pop group Ratata in 1980 along with a few classmates while he was still in school. The first single was "För varje dag" ("For each day") released on the debut album "Ratata" in 1981. After the break-up of Ratata in 1989 Scocco started a successful solo career and has released many songs that have reached top positions on the Swedish charts; "Sarah", "Vem är han?" ("Who is he?"), "Till de ensamma" ("For the lonely"), "Nelly", "Långsamt farväl" ("Long Goodbye") and "Överallt" ("Everywhere") are among the most recognized. Besides being a solo artist he also writes and produces music for other pop singers, of which Lisa Nilsson is the most famous. Scocco wrote "Himlen runt hörnet" ("Heaven around the corner") for her and it became a hit in Scandinavia in the early 1990s that made her career skyrocket.
In 1991, Scocco released an album with instrumental piano music, "Det Sjungande Trädet" ("The singing tree"), with inspiration from Erik Satie and expressionistic art. In the spring of 2004, Scocco was a disc jockey in the talkshow Sen kväll med Luuk on TV4, in line with the dry, ironic humour of the show. In the fall of 2005 Scocco released the single "Kall Stjärna" ("Cold star") from the album "Herr Jimsons Äventyr" ("The adventures of Mr. Jimson"), which made it to the top list over downloaded singles on iTunes.
Ratata.
Mauro Scocco was also a lead singer of the four-piece Swedish band Ratata, formed in 1980, which also included Heinz Liljedahl, Anders Skog, and Johan Kling. Their debut single was "För varje dag" in 1981 followed by "Ögon av is". Both appeared in their self-titled 1982 debut album "Ratata". Immediately after release of "Jackie", their second album, including the title track as single, Ratata disbanded in 1982 after just three years of activity.
But Scocco continued to use the name as a duo when he was joined by Johan Ekelund. For studio and live gigs, the duo relied on musicians to aid in the shows. The duo continued to have a great number of hit singles and released many more charting albums. The duo had a brief comeback in 2002.
Personal life.
Mauro Scocco's brother Sandro Scocco is a well-known Swedish economist.
Discography.
Others
Solo compilations
Singles
Mauro & Plura
References.
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Till dom som bryr sig
Till dom som bryr sig is the second studio album by Swedish indie pop band Solen. It was released on 29 October 2014. The album was nominated for the 2015 Grammis Award for "Best Rock" album.
References.
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Benjamin Till
English composer, director and film maker
Benjamin Till (born 8 August 1974) is a multi-award-winning English composer, director and film maker.
Early years.
Till was born in Oswestry, Shropshire, and spent much of his childhood in the Northamptonshire town of Higham Ferrers. He attended the Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust (NMPAT) and sang in the Northamptonshire County Youth Choir.
Education.
He studied music and composition at The University of York, then trained on the directing course at London's Mountview Theatre School.
Composing.
Mosaic Voices.
Till is the Composer in Residence for Mosaic Voices, a British vocal ensemble specialising in music from the Jewish tradition based at New West End Synagogue in Bayswater, London. He also sings as baritone in the ensemble. Mosaic Voices' most recent album, "Letter To Kamilla", (released by Chandos Records) was a top 5 album in the official UK Classical Music charts and was described by "Gramophone magazine" as "moving but never mawkish" and by "BBC Music Magazine" as "sung with power and passion... simply heartbreaking."
Till has written over fifty original compositions for the ensemble and arranged or re-scored more than one hundred further pieces. His composition, Time, was performed in January 2024. It tells the story of The New West End Synagogue through newspaper reports, mostly from the Jewish Chronicle. His setting of Psalm 23 (The Lord's My Shepherd) was turned into a short film which documented the lives of UK Jewish People during lockdown. This film won a
Nene.
In 2016, Till was commissioned by NMPAT (Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust) to compose a major orchestral and choral work about the River Nene, which flows through his childhood home town of Higham Ferrers. The composition was scored for 800 musicians and premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in 2017, before being performed at Northampton's Derngate Theatre and Peterborough Cathedral. His composition follows the river from its source in Badby all the way to the sea (100 miles away) in Norfolk. The piece quotes tradition folk melodies from towns and villages along the river, and explores ghost stories, myths and legends associated with the Nene. Till also musicalises the sounds of the river and its associated wildlife, including the calls of red kites.
The Pepys Motet.
In 2010, St. Olave's Church, where Samuel Pepys is buried, commissioned Till to write a 40-part motet to mark the 350th anniversary of Pepys' beginning to write his diary. Four of the six movements were performed live in November 2010 at St. Olave's. The fourth movement, "The Great Fire", was broadcast on BBC Radio 3's "In Tune" programme, whilst "The Pepys Motet" was re-scored for 20 voices and recorded and released by Hind Style Records in 2016.
"The London Requiem".
Completed in 2012, "The London Requiem" is a setting of gravestone inscriptions which Till found in cemeteries across London. This ten-movement work is scored for string orchestra, string quartet, four percussionists and three keyboard players, alongside full SATB choir and soloists. The work was featured on The Space, a pilot BBC project. Ten short films were created for each of the movements, and subsequently a live performance of the full piece was broadcast from Abney Park Cemetery. "The London Requiem" was recorded in 2012 and featured the Balanescu Quartet and soloists including Maddy Prior, Matt Lucas, Tanita Tikaram and Barbara Windsor.
Oranges and Lemons.
In early 2009, Till recorded all the bells mentioned in the nursery rhyme, "Oranges and Lemons" (two hundred bells in seventeen London churches), and wrote a piece of music to feature them all playing in harmony, alongside a choir of people who live or work in one of the areas around the churches. This twelve-minute composition, which included 4000 individual bell strikes was featured on BBC Radio 3's "In Tune" and BBC Radio 4's "Today Programme", alongside in depth coverage by BBC London, who sponsored the piece with Arts Council England.
The piece received its premiere performance on 11 July 2009 at St. Mary le Bow Church, London.
Benjamin Till's various compositions also include some liturgical Jewish works for "a cappella" male vocal ensemble, commissioned by Mosaic Voices, the resident choir at the New West End Synagogue, of which he is a member.
Theatre work.
"Brass".
In 2014, Till was commissioned by the National Youth Music Theatre to create a new musical to commemorate the centenary of the First World War. "Brass" has book, music and lyrics by Till, with additional lyrics by Sir Arnold Wesker and Nathan Taylor. The show premiered in August 2014 at Leeds City Varieties Music Hall and tells the story of a group of men from a Leeds-based brass band who sign up to fight as part of the Leeds Pals battalion, and their women folk who decide to learn the instruments the men have left behind in the hope of playing triumphantly for them on their return from war.
The show, directed by Sara Kestelman and choreographed by Matt Flint, went on to win Best Musical at the UK Theatre Awards 2014. A cast recording was released the following year. "Brass "was later revived by the NYMT in a new production at the Hackney Empire in August 2016, directed by Hannah Chissick, and was met with rave reviews, especially from Theatre Critic and Associate Editor of "The Stage", Mark Shenton, who said the show was a "magnificent miracle of a musical...with epic sweep and originality."
From 31 October to 24 November 2018, the show received its professional premiere in a new production at the Union Theatre, directed by Sasha Regan, the theatre's founder and artistic director. The production received a full complement of four and five-star reviews. Michael Arditti in the "Sunday Express" wrote "Benjamin Till's rich, melodious score, its influences, ranging from Marie Lloyd to Vaughan Williams, powerfully conveys the fervour, horror and heartbreak both in the trenches and at home". The production was nominated for five Offies. Brass is published by Rodgers and Hammerstein Theatricals.
Em.
In 2017, Till wrote the musical "Em", set in Liverpool in 1965, which tells the story of a woman who is trying to keep a baby born out of wedlock, which the authorities want to take away from her. The musical was performed by Central School of Speech and Drama, and subsequently released as a cast album.
Other theatre.
In 1997, Till was approached by playwright Sir Arnold Wesker to collaborate with him on a one-woman musical play that he had written in 1990. The piece was called "Letter to a Daughter", and the UK premiere opened at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh on Till's birthday, 8 August 1998.
Film and television.
Casting.
From 2004 to 2006, Till worked as a casting assistant to casting director Shaheen Baig, and worked on such films as "Control", "Notes on a Scandal", "Brick Lane" and "28 Weeks Later", the last of which he also worked on closely with the two young leads, Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton.
BBC films.
In early 2005, he submitted a pitch to BBC London News, who were looking for people to make a two-minute short film on the subject of "Untold London." The pitch was for a musical film featuring the different communities who use and enjoy Hampstead Heath. Till was one of ten directors chosen to make their films, and "Hampstead Heath: The Musical" was born. The film was nominated for a Royal Television Society award.
BBC producer Penny Wrout then commissioned him to make a three-minute musical film for the Children in Need telethon, showcasing the bizarre and wacky ways that people were raising money for the popular charity: the film was shown twice during the telethon in November that year.
"The Busker Symphony" (2006).
In 2006, Till made four short films for Channel 4's "Three-Minute Wonder" season. The project was called "The Busker Symphony", and a four-movement piece he composed was performed by buskers past and present at various locations around London. Each film featured one movement from the Symphony, variously entitled "Andante", "Adagio", "Scherzo" and "Finalé": the films were broadcast in April 2006.
"A1: the Road Musical" (2008).
In April 2008, Till started work on his largest-scale project to date, "A1: the Road Musical", again for Channel 4. The half-hour film was produced by Endemol, and followed a lorry driver's journey up the A1, from London to Edinburgh, during which he met various people along the way; they all tell their stories, either in song or set to a specially composed soundtrack.
The film starts with Londoners singing their thoughts while stuck in city traffic, then further up the road a young Polish man is introduced: he is deliberating whether or not to leave England and return to Poland. We then meet a woman who was involved in a severe car accident and the mysterious stranger who helped her, a choir of ex-miners lamenting the demise of the coal industry, a young man who lost his brother in an accident on the A1, two motorbikers railing at the government red tape that threatens to stifle people's independence and a Berwick-upon-Tweed resident who is campaigning to have the Scottish border redrawn to make his town part of Scotland, where he feels it rightly belongs.
The film was broadcast on 29 August 2008, and became the fourth most-praised programme aired on Channel 4 that month, based on telephone calls to the station to congratulate the makers.
"Coventry Market: The Musical" (2008).
On 4 November 2008, BBC Coventry and Warwickshire screened the premiere of "Coventry Market: The Musical", a film made by Till to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the town's indoor market. Drawing on the whole community surrounding the market, and those who work in it or patronise it, the film spawned a large multi-platform project, with many radio hours dedicated to its creation, and the stories of some of those featured in it. In addition, there were associated online blogs and news documentaries shown in the region.
"Metro: The Musical" (2011).
On 24 March 2011, BBC Look North, premiered Till's "Metro: The Musical". The work celebrated 30 years of the Tyne and Wear Metro carrying the North-Eastern community from the busy epicentre of Monument to the sunny coast of Tynemouth, or the bustling runways of Newcastle Airport. It featured a cast of 180 – all of whom have worked or been passengers on the network since 1980 – sharing their stories.
"Our Gay Wedding: The Musical" (2014).
On 29 March 2014, Till married his long-term partner Nathan Taylor, in the process becoming one of the first same-sex couples to get married in the UK. They were married in a musical, which was commissioned by Channel 4, in Alexandra Palace Theatre and broadcast two days after the wedding itself. The multi-award-winning film received wide praise. Ed Power, writing in "The Daily Telegraph" said it was "more powerful than anything all the romcom writers in the world could have put together".
"The Guardian"'s Tim Dowling wrote "When I say I cried I cried all the way through [...] an hour of unbridled joy, an inventive and wholly appropriate way to celebrate the advent of equal marriage [...] better than perfect, it was fabulous." In Metro, Simon Swift reviewed it as "The wedding that was better than Kate and Will's [...] a heartwarming, uplifting, tear-jerking celebration of gay marriage [...] Best. Wedding. Ever."
"100 Faces" (2018).
In 2018, Benjamin made the film "100 Faces" which features 100 Jewish British people, one born every year between 1918 and 2017. Some sing, some speak, all state what being Jewish means to them in a single sentence. The film is accompanied by a soundtrack recorded by the Israel Camerata orchestra. The film was premiered at the UK Jewish Film Festival in 2018 and has subsequently been screened in festivals around the world. In 2019, it shared the gold prize at the prestigious Robinson Short Film Awards.
Radio.
Till worked with long-term friend Sir Arnold Wesker again in 2007, when he was asked to write the featured song (to Wesker's lyrics) and incidental music for Wesker's radio play, "The Rocking Horse", commissioned by the BBC World Service to celebrate theirs and Wesker's 75th birthday. The play was aired in November 2007.
Personal life.
Benjamin Till is married to actor and knitting guru Nathan Taylor. The couple live in London.
References.
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Ensamma mamman
Swedish comic strip created by Cecilia Torudd
Ensamma mamman ("single mom") is a Swedish comic strip created by Cecilia Torudd. "Ensamma mamman" first made a brief appearance in "Dagens Nyheter" in 1985. It was well received by the readers and returned in 1987 as a fixed feature. Torudd continued drawing it until 1991, when it was syndicated by Bull, and it has since been rerun in many newspapers. "Ensamma mamman" deals with a single mother and her two teenage children, her 14-year-old son Beppe and her daughter Mia, 17 years old.
"Ensamma mamman" received the Urhunden Prize by the "Swedish Association for Promotion of Comics", in 1989.
Source.
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Dom Capuano
Italian musical artist (born 1975)
Dom Capuano (born Domenico Capuano 21 April 1975), is an Italian music composer and producer of pop music, electronic dance music and orchestra.
His breakthrough as a producer and songwriter arrived in the mid to late 1990s after crafting a string of hits for pop artists like Eiffel 65, Da Blitz, Gabry Ponte and Karmah. He has also collaborated with several international artists including: Toni Braxton, S Club 7, Busta Rhymes, Jean Michel Jarre, Kool & The Gang, Laura Pausini, 883, Aqua, Zucchero, Nek, Andreas Johnson, Alphaville.
Early life and career.
He studied music, in particular double bass at the G. Verdi Conservatory of Music in Turin, Italy. He is also a piano player, composer and conductor. His entire musical career can be split into two different paths: the recording industry and symphonic music.
In the early 1990s, he succeeded as a composer and record music producer and he is now considered a "successful composer on the mainstream" due to his continuous "maniacal" research and experimentation of new sounds.
Over the years, he has composed and produced many hits. In 1993, he composed "Let Me Be" launching the career of Da Blitz. (#11 in Italian charts). In 1994, he composed "Take My Way".
As a composer and arranger for DaBlitz, he has entered repeatedly Italian charts with "Let Me Be" and "Stay with Me" (which eventually reached the 1st position). Da Blitz will be in the standings again with the songs "Movin' On" and "Take Me Back" (which both peaked at number 4) and "I Believe" (which got to number 8 )
Worldwide recognition.
The album "Europop" by Eiffel 65 was released in US by Universal reaching the 4th position of U.S. charts by selling a total of 3,800,000 copies. Europop was also released worldwide with different record labels including Warner Music and Sony Music, receiving good reviews from the American press (Ref: Pop Matters , Entertainment Weekly  All Music )
Eiffel 65 received a Grammy Awards Nomination in 2001(source: Rockonthenet ) and their track "Move Your Body" was played at the World Music Awards of Montecarlo in 2000, in front of a VIP audience hall, that included Mariah Carey and Michael Jackson. In 2002 international press recognised the market distribution of Eiffel 65 as 15 million units sold worldwide including albums and singles.
In 2000 and 2001, Dom remixed more than 40 songs for various international artists including "Tout est Bleu" by Jean Michel Jarre which co-produced the song step by step together with him. Dom says that it was a huge honor to collaborate with Mr. Jarre and it was one of the best satisfactions of his entire life since he had studied years before electronic music having non-other than Jean Michel Jarre and Mike Oldfield as references.
Over the years, Dom has produced also remixes for the Italian band 883 including, "Come Mai", "La Donna, Il Sogno e Il Grande Incubo", "Gli Anni" credited by Bliss Team and also "Viaggio al centro del mondo" and the hit "La Regina del Celebrità" credited by Eiffel 65.
Between 2002 and 2005, Dom collaborated with Gabry Ponte producing and writing songs like "The Man in the Moon" and "Depends on You" from the albums "Doctor Jekyll & Mr. DJ". From the album "Gabry Ponte" was extracted the single "Figli di Pitagora" performed by Italian Rock'n' Roll Legend "Little Tony". Both albums were released by Universal Italy and both reached the top of national rankings. (source: HitParadeItalia 2002  ) (2003: ).
In 2005, at Bliss Corporation, Dom produced, with Gabry Ponte, several tracks for the band "Karmah" which experienced quite a big success in Europe (mainly in Germany) peaking at #5 with a cover of SOS' "Just Be Good to Me" which contained a sample of the song "Every Breath You Take" by The Police.
Italian pop music.
In the summer of 2006, Dom met the band Dari and began an artistic collaboration as producer and co-author of some of their songs. In February 2008 the band achieved success in Italy with the song "Wale (Tanto Wale)". Soon after he received the following awards: the Italian Revelation video of the year for the track "wALE (tANTo wALE)" in 2008; 2 MTV TRL Awards in 2009 as "Best New Artist" and 2010 for the "Best Look".
In 2010, Capuano has produced the Rock band "Fonokit". In the same year he completed his music studies as conductor, which gave him the input to move to the US to pursue his passion for movies and soundtracks. (source: Imdb )
Film scoring and Hollywood.
In 2006, a new chapter began with the study of music composition for cinema and in 2008 Dom produces his first real and complete work for a 45 minutes film, "Calibro 70", directed by Alessandro Rota. (source: Imdb ). The film won some international film festivals (source: Imdb ). In 2009 he composed the soundtrack "Hey Gio" for the Disney Channel TV series "Chiamatemi Gio" (an Italian revision of "Ugly Betty"). (source: Imdb ).
After the soundtracks of "Ninja Turtles" and some other short films, in 2011 he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career as a composer for film.
In 2011, Dom composed and produced the soundtrack for the Australian film "The Sleeping Warrior". (Source: Imdb ) which treats a philosophical-political issue and was directed by the Indian filmmaker Chayan Sarkar. In 2012 he composed and produced the soundtrack for the American film "Solid State" (source: Imdb ) starring Vivica A. Fox.
He composed and produced the second episode of the trilogy directed by Stefano Milla "Richard The Lionheart: Rebellion": a story on the vicissitudes of the rise to the throne of the future King of England Richard I "the Lionheart", son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. (Source: Imdb ). With a first release in 2015 the film eventually got distributed by STUDIOCANAL for the UE and Sony Pictures for the U.S. In the same year he composed the soundtrack of the TV movie "Beautiful Destroyer". (Source: Imdb )
Dom is still composing for films and in 2016 he scored "The Silent Lynx" and "Branded" directed by Phil Gorn starring the London twins, Jeremy and James London, known for several TV series that have brought them to prominence in the '90s and Christopher Showerman, famous for his role in "George of the jungle" by Disney. (Source: Imdb )
Among his most appreciated collaborations there is "Kingdom of Gladiators, the Tournament" a film about fights and gladiators starring the hero of the WWF and WWE wrestling walk of fame star Solofa Fatu Jr. better known as Rikishi. (Source: Imdb )
In 2018, "Enter the Fire" starring Lou Ferrigno, had been released. The music scored by Dom Capuano is a revolutionary concept of soundscape and techno music which drives the movie to another level of soundtrack experience. (Source: )
Other works.
Always close to the academies and education, Dom composed numerous short films for students of American universities such as: USC University of Southern California, UCLA University of California Los Angeles, NYFA (New York Film Academy), AFI, (HIFA) Hollywood International Film Academy (source: Imdb ), (source: Imdb  )
Awards.
With the album "Europop" he obtained a triple platinum award in the U.S. (certified RIAA) with over 3 million sales which include the song "Move Your Body" by Eiffel 65 and reaching over 10 million in sales worldwide. The single "Move Your Body" archived 3 Platinums in Australia, France and Germany, 2 Golds in UK and Austria with a total amount of over 1,500,000 sales. He also received other several gold awards with Da Blitz (6 golds in Italy and 1 in Spain), Gabry Ponte (2 golds), Karmah (2 golds in Germany)
Discography.
Albums.
Selected albums from sales chart rankings:
Singles.
Selected singles from sales chart rankings:
References.
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Till Eulenspiegel
Fictional character from German folklore
Till Eulenspiegel (; ) is the protagonist of a European narrative tradition. A German chapbook published around 1510 is the oldest known extant publication about the folk hero (a first edition of c. 1510/12 is preserved fragmentarily), but a background in earlier Middle Low German folklore is likely. The character may have been based on a historical person.
Eulenspiegel is a native of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg whose picaresque career takes him to many places throughout the Holy Roman Empire.
He plays practical jokes on his contemporaries, at every turn exposing vices. His life is set in the first half of the 14th century, and the final chapters of the chapbook describe his death from the plague of 1350.
Eulenspiegel's surname translates to "owl-mirror"; and the frontispiece of the 1515 chapbook, as well as his alleged tombstone in Mölln, Schleswig-Holstein, render it as a rebus comprising an owl and a hand mirror. It has been suggested that the name is in fact a pun on a Low German phrase that translates as "wipe-arse".
Modern retellings of the Eulenspiegel story have been published since the latter 19th century. "The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak", by Charles De Coster (1867), transfers the character to the period of the Reformation and the Dutch Revolt; the novel's "Ulenspiegel" (in modern Dutch, "Tijl Uilenspiegel") was adopted as a symbol by the Flemish Movement.
Origin and historicity.
According to the chapbook, Eulenspiegel was born in Kneitlingen in Lower Saxony near Brunswick around 1300. As a vagrant ("Landfahrer"), he travelled through the Holy Roman Empire, especially Northern Germany, but also the Low Countries, Bohemia, and Italy.
He is said to have died in Mölln, Schleswig-Holstein, near Lübeck and Hamburg, of the Black Death in 1350.
The first known chapbook on Eulenspiegel was printed in c. 1510–1512 in Strasbourg. It is reasonable to place the folkloristic origins of the tradition in the 15th century, although, in spite of suggestions to the effect "that the name 'Eulenspiegel' was used in tales of rogues and liars in Lower Saxony as early as 1400", 15th-century references to a Till Eulenspiegel turn out to be surprisingly elusive.
The text of the first extant edition, printed by Johannes Grüninger, is in the High German language.
There has been a debate surrounding the possible existence of an older Low German edition, now lost.
This version has been attributed to Hans Dorn, the only known printer active in Brunswick at the beginning of the 16th century (active from at least 1502). Sodmann (1980) in support of this hypothesis adduced the woodcut of a fool on horseback holding a hand mirror used by Dorn in later prints, as the title illustration of his "Liber Vagatorum" and "Grobianus", which may originally have served as the title illustration of the lost Eulenspiegel edition.
There are several suggestions as to the author of the 1510 chapbook, none of which has gained mainstream acceptance.
Candidates include Thomas Murner, Hermann Bote, Hieronymus Brunschwig, or an author collective surrounding Johannes Grüninger, including Thomas Murner, Johannes Adelphus, Tilemann Conradi and Hermannus Buschius.
The author of the 1515 edition in a short preface identifies himself only as "N". He gives the year 1500 as the date when he originally began to collect the tales, stressing the difficulty of the project and how he wanted to abandon it several times, saying that he is now publishing it after all to "lighten the mood in hard times". The preface also announces the inclusion of material from Pfaff Amis and Pfaff vom Kahlenberg, but no such material is present in the 1515 edition.
The literal translation of the High German name "Eulenspiegel" is "owl-mirror" (hence "owle-glasse"). It is both innocuous and indicative of his character and has been explained as a garbled form of an expression for "wipe-the-arse".
Many of Till's pranks are scatological in nature, and involve tricking people into touching, smelling, or even eating Till's excrement.
Scatological stories abound, beginning with Till's early childhood (in which he rides behind his father and exposes his rear-end to the townspeople) and persisting until his death bed (where he tricks a priest into soiling his hands with feces).
In modern scholarship, there have been some attempts to find evidence for the historicity of Till Eulenspiegel's person.
Hucker (1980) mentions that according to a contemporary legal register of the city of Brunswick one "Till van Cletlinge" ("Till from/of Kneitlingen") was incarcerated there in the year 1339, along with four of his accomplices, for highway robbery.
In Mölln, the reported site of Eulenspiegel's death and burial in the plague year of 1350, a memorial stone was commissioned by the town council in 1544, now on display in an alcove on the outside wall of the tower of St. Nicolai church. The stone is inscribed in Low German, as follows:
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The inscription (including the date of 1350) was allegedly copied from an older tombstone, now lost. This older tombstone is referred to in the chapbook of 1515, and it is mentioned as still being extant in 1536.
The 1544 stone is mentioned by Fynes Moryson in his "Itinerary" of 1591.
Moryson also reports that in his time, the citizens of Mölln held a yearly festival in Eulenspiegel's honour, on which occasion they would present the clothes worn by Eulenspiegel when he died.
Chapbook tradition.
The two earliest printed editions, in Early New High German, were printed by Johannes Grüninger in Strasbourg. The first edition was unknown before sixteen folia of printing proofs
were discovered in 1971 in the binding of a Latin edition of Reynard.
Peter Honegger dated these pages to 1510/11 based on the type used, but this date has since been called into question.
Only a single specimen of the first edition has been preserved, discovered in 1975. Thirty folia are missing, including the title page.
A previous owner has replaced the missing pages by pages torn from an Eulenspiegel edition of c. 1700.
It was most likely published in 1512. The sixteen folia discovered by Honegger are likely printing proofs for this edition.
It consists of 100 folia with 66 woodcuts of high quality.
The 1515 edition was also printed by Grüninger in Strasbourg. Its full title reads:
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The text is divided into 95 chapters (numbered to 96 as chapter number 42 is missing).
The 1515 edition is decidedly inferior, missing many of the illustrations of the older edition, and showing signs of careless copying of the text.
It is uncertain how many of these chapters were present in the earlier edition of 1510/12, although some of the chapters appear to be later additions. The initials of the final six chapters form the "acrostic" "ERMANB", which has been taken as a hidden reference to the book's author.
The first chapters are dedicated to Till's childhood. In chapter nine, Till leaves his mother and begins his life as a vagrant. He takes up diverse occupations, but each chapter ends with his moving on to another place.
The final seven chapters are dedicated to his death and burial.
In the chapbooks,


Thinking Out Loud
2014 single by Ed Sheeran
"Thinking Out Loud" is a song by English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran recorded for his second studio album, "×" (2014). It was written by Ed Sheeran and Amy Wadge, and produced by frequent collaborator Jake Gosling. It was released in the US on 14 August 2014 as the album's third single.
In the UK, the song spent 19 weeks within the top 40 before peaking at number one in early November 2014; it became Sheeran's second number-one single there. The single has also reached the top spot in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia and South Africa, and peaked at number two on both the US "Billboard" Hot 100 and the Canadian Hot 100. It was Sheeran's highest-charting single in North America until "Shape of You" topped the charts in both countries in 2017.
In June 2015, "Thinking Out Loud" became the first single to spend a full year in the UK top 40. In September 2015, it also became the seventh single to have achieved triple platinum certification in the UK during the 21st century. In October 2015, the song became the first to be streamed over 500 million times on Spotify, is also one of the most streamed songs in the UK and has been viewed more than 3.8 billion times on YouTube as of February 2025.
"Thinking Out Loud" received nominations for Grammy Award for Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance at the 58th Grammy Awards, winning the latter two.
Background and writing.
Sheeran wrote "Thinking Out Loud" with Amy Wadge, a Wales-based singer-songwriter. He met Wadge when he was 17 years old and they had since written several songs together. Of these, five songs composed the extended play "Songs I Wrote with Amy", which Sheeran independently released on 4 April 2010. Wadge also co-wrote the song "Gold Rush", a track on the deluxe version of Sheeran's debut album, "+" (2011).
In February 2014, Wadge visited Sheeran at home for a "chilling-out time". Around that time, Sheeran's second studio album, "×", was nearly completed. Wadge revealed that her visit was not supposed to be a songwriting session. While Sheeran was taking a shower, Wadge played a few chords on a guitar. The tune caught the attention of Sheeran and he ran downstairs. Sheeran suggested working with the tune, but only after returning home from dinner, work began. The melody developed from a simple riff. According to Sheeran, he composed the melody on a guitar in a manner which was "very Van-like", referring to Van Morrison. The Irish musician has been an inspiration to Sheeran since a young age, and Sheeran wanted to capture that vibe when he composed the song.
In the kitchen, Sheeran and Wadge began writing the song at 2:00am on 4 February 2014, and completed it in 20 minutes. According to Wadge, the lyrical content resulted from her and Sheeran's talking about "everlasting love", inspired by the circumstances relevant at that time. Sheeran also revealed that the lyrics were inspired by his then-girlfriend, Athina Andrelos, whom Sheeran met in early 2014. Sheeran would later explain that he wrote the song "in a relationship at a really, really happy point". Sheeran revealed that he also had his grandparents in mind and maintaining love in old age ("'til we're 70" in the lyrics), and the early version of the chorus was "I'm singing out now" before it became "I'm thinking out loud". Immediately after writing, Sheeran recorded the song on his phone. He was keen to include "Thinking Out Loud" on the second album. He properly recorded the song the following day at the Sticky Studios, a recording facility located in the small Surrey village of Windlesham, and informed Wadge of its inclusion on the album. It became the last song recorded for the album. For "Thinking Out Loud", Sheeran sought the assistance of Jake Gosling, who produced much of his debut album and had earlier contributed tracks, four of which appear on the standard version of the second album.
Composition.
"Thinking Out Loud" is a romantic ballad with blue-eyed soul influences. Sheeran referred to it as a "walking down the aisle song". In the lyrics, Sheeran reflects on "getting older and fidelity and love in a fairly conventional context", according to Eric Clarke, professor of music at University of Oxford.
The song was composed in the key of D major with a tempo of 79 beats per minute. Sheeran's vocals range from B2 to A4. In the mix, Sheeran's voice is "unusually" loud over the instruments, which, for Mike Senior of the music technology magazine, "Sound on Sound", is "surprisingly rare" in contemporary records. Senior analysed the vocal elements in which he found that, in spite of several notes sung off pitch, "the overall framework of the vocal remains fundamentally in tune".
Journalists noted similarities between "Thinking Out Loud" and "Let's Get It On", a 1973 single by soul musician Marvin Gaye. Andrew Unterberger of "Spin" wrote that "the gently loping four-note bass pattern and crisp '70s soul drums absolutely smack of the Gaye classic, as do the embrace-insistent lyrics and general candlelit-bedroom feel". Jason Lipshutz of "Billboard" called it a "sleek update" of the classic.
Release.
Prior to the album release, Sheeran debuted "Thinking Out Loud" on 24 May 2014 by performing it live on the British music television show, "Later... with Jools Holland". The debut followed the release of the video accompaniment to "Sing", the album's lead single. "Thinking Out Loud" was immediately perceived as having contrast to "Sing", which is a "high-energy funk/R&B-infused song". "Thinking Out Loud" became available on 18 June 2014 as an "instant grat" download for consumers who pre-ordered "×" on the iTunes Store. It served as a promotional single from "×", which was released two days later. On the standard version of the album, "Thinking Out Loud" is the next-to-last track, the last being "Afire Love".
"Thinking Out Loud" was initially serviced to Australian radio on 14 August 2014 and later released on 24 September 2014. It served as the third of five singles released from the album; it followed the songs, "Sing" and "Don't", the first and second single respectively. According to Sheeran, no one from his record label wanted to release "Thinking Out Loud" as a single, favouring over "Photograph" as the "big song". "Photograph" was supposed to be the main single, but when "Thinking Out Loud" spent several weeks within the top 20 on the UK Singles Chart albeit not receiving rotation, the latter song was kept as the third single. "Photograph" was later released as the fifth and final single. "Thinking Out Loud" was issued on 7" vinyl exclusively as part of the Black Friday Record Store Day, which was celebrated on 28 November 2014. The vinyl record included, as a B-side, the live version of "I'm A Mess" which Sheeran performed at the Lightship 95 studio. On 26 December 2015, Sheeran released an Irish-language version of "Thinking Out Loud" for the Irish album "CEOL 2016".
Critical reception.
Lauren Murphy of "The Irish Times" noted that the "injection of blue-eyed soul" on the song is "enjoyable", and that it "makes Sheeran's aptitude for melody difficult to dismiss". Jim Beviglia of the "American Songwriter" thought that although "tidy", "Thinking Out Loud" comes "toothless" compared with the "daring confessionals" Sheeran made on the other songs.
"The Washington Post" writer, Allison Stewart, has hailed the song as "a blatant and mercilessly effective bid for 'I'll Be'-style wedding-song immortality". "Billboard" magazine's Jason Lipshutz, commented that Sheeran "pushes this bold stab at romance past its sappiest moments, and ends the album on a likable note". Jamieson Cox of "Time" wrote that "the album's greatest moment by a country mile is relegated to its penultimate slot", referring to "Thinking Out Loud".
Chart performance.
"Thinking Out Loud" topped several charts in Europe, Oceania and South Africa, and reached the top ten in several other countries in North America (see Weekly charts below). Upon the album's release, the single debuted at number 26 on the UK Singles Chart. On 2 November 2014, "Thinking Out Loud" topped the UK Singles Chart in its 19th week in the Top 40, becoming Sheeran's second UK number one and breaking the record for the longest ascent to number one. In the week ending 27 June 2015, it had spent a record consecutive 52 weeks (or a full year) inside the top 40. Around the same time, the single had accumulated 1.65 million combined sales and streams; it became one of the 161 million-selling singles and the 26th best-selling of the 2010s in the UK. On 18 September 2015, the British Phonographic Industry certified the single triple platinum for combined sales (including streaming points) of 1,800,000 units. As of September 2017, the song has sold 1,219,000 copies with 130 million streams, making a total of 2,521,000 units sold in the United Kingdom. In February 2025, its certification was upgraded to octuple platinum, denoting sales and streams of over 4,800,000.
In the US, "Thinking Out Loud" peaked at number two on the all-encompassing chart "Billboard" Hot 100; the single became Sheeran's highest-charting single until the release of "Shape of You" in 2017. It remained the runner-up spot for eight consecutive weeks, a chart feat last held in 2004. "Thinking Out Loud" was kept off the top spot by "Uptown Funk", although it outperformed the latter song for a week in February 2015 on the "Billboard" Digital Songs. On other specific US charts, "Thinking Out Loud" reached number one on the "Billboard" Adult Pop Songs for the week ending 21 February 2015, marking Sheeran's first. For the week ending 21 March 2015, "Thinking Out Loud" held the top position on the "Billboard" Pop Songs, Adult Pop Songs, and Adult Contemporary charts, becoming the fourth song in history to lead all three adult charts simultaneously. In celebration of Google Play's fifth anniversary, Google announced "Thinking Out Loud" as the top-selling song on the platform. "Thinking Out Loud" is Sheeran's best-selling song in the United States, with 5,622,000 copies sold as of September 2017.
On streaming services.
In the UK, Sheeran's native country, "Thinking Out Loud" claimed the record for the most streams in a single week in December 2014. The track accumulated over 1,638,000 streams, and subsequently achieved a personal best of 1,850,000 streams in the week ending 21 December 2014. This record has since been broken by several songs.
In April 2015, the song ranked as the most popular based on the 2.8 million sleep-themed playlists created by Spotify users. Sleep is one of the company's most popular categories that, according to Spotify, "people also use for general relaxation and to help themselves unwind". "The Guardian" columnist Tim Dowling suggested that the report indicated "very popular, slightly mellow songs that keep cropping up on sleep playlists" but not a list of a "carefully curated journey to unconsciousness".
In October 2015, "Thinking Out Loud" set the record of most streams of a song on Spotify, having accumulated over 500 million streams. The company created the "Sheerio Index", an interactive graphic map which showed where Sheeran was most popular. The colour-based map indicated that Sheeran was most popular in Denmark. It was surpassed a month later by "Lean On", a song by Major Lazer and DJ Snake featuring MØ.
Music video.
Emil Nava directed the video accompaniment to the single. Most of it was filmed in the Crystal Ballroom at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California. The video was shot continuously using a 16 mm film camera.
Unlike Sheeran's earlier videos, where he assumed a low profile, he took the lead role on "Thinking Out Loud". In the video, Sheeran executes a contemporary dance with Brittany Cherry, a contestant from the televised American dance competition, "So You Think You Can Dance". The routine was choreographed by Nappytabs and with training help from Paul Karmiryan. While on concert tour, Sheeran spent five hours a day for three weeks to practice with Cherry.
The video was released on 7 October 2014. After the first 24 hours, the video had over 2.7 million views on video-sharing website, YouTube. As of October 2022, it has 3.5 billion views, making it the 17th most viewed video on the site. The music video received four nominations at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards including Video of the Year and Best Male Video.
Live performances.
On 26 October 2014, Sheeran performed the song on third live results show of series 11 of "The X Factor". He also performed it on 9 November 2014 in the 2014 MTV Europe Music Awards. Sheeran also performed the song as a special guest at "The Voice"'s live finale on 16 December 2014. Furthermore, Sheeran performed the track on the Christmas Special of "The Jonathan Ross Show" on 20 December 2014. He also performed the song at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards on 8 February 2015 along with John Mayer, Questlove, Adam Blackstone, and Herbie Hancock. Sheeran performed "Thinking Out Loud" on 13 April 2015 results show of the second series of "The X Factor" in New Zealand. Sheeran also performed the song at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2014. On 15 August 2024, Sheeran and Taylor Swift performed "Thinking Out Loud" at Wembley Stadium in London as part of a mashup with their collaborations "Everything Has Changed" and "End Game" for Swift's Eras Tour (2023–2024).
Parodies and usage in media.
On 28 April 2015 episode of "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon", actor Jeremy Renner, known for his role as Hawkeye in the "Avengers" movies, performed on piano and sang a song captioned by Fallon's show on YouTube as "Hawkeye Sings About His Super Powers". While not parodying Sheeran's lyrics, it is sung to the same tune. The lyrics suggest that Hawkeye feels defensive compared with the other Avengers as he was the only mortally human one in a team of superhuman or enhanced heroes: "But listen, I've got powers too; they're pretty sweet. / I promise I can do so much more than just archery ... / I can open a pickle jar. / I'm friggin' Hawkeye. / Maybe I'm as super as they are."
The song and video were also parodied in the CW series "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend". Titled "Let's Have Intercourse", the song was sung by Scott Michael Foster with Rachel Bloom appearing in the scene dancing with Foster in the same manner as Sheeran and Cherry. The lyrics are an appeal by Foster's character, Nathaniel Plimpton III, to series protagonist Rebecca Bunch (Bloom) to have sex whilst trapped in an elevator.
Plagiarism allegations.
On 10 August 2016, it was announced that the family of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On", was suing Sheeran, alleging that "the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic compositions of 'Thinking' are substantially and/or strikingly similar to the drum composition of 'Let's [Get It On]'." The case was dismissed without prejudice in February 2017. Two years later, on 28 June 2018, Ed Sheeran was again sued on similar grounds, this time for $100 million in damages by Structured Asset Sales, owners of one-third of the copyright to "Let's Get It On". The case was heard by a jury in New York City in 2023, which found in favor of Sheeran.
Sheeran's defence rests on the argument that, while the two songs have similar "building blocks" and a specific chord progression in particular, such features are true for many pop songs. After winning the trial, Sheeran said: "These chords are common building blocks which were used to create music long before 'Let’s Get It On' was written and will be used to create music long after we are all gone."
Formats and track listings.
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Credits and personnel.
Credits adapted from the album liner notes:
Charts.
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Chad Brownlee version.
Canadian country singer Chad Brownlee recorded a cover version and released it as a single in 2015. He also released a video of himself performing the song.
References.
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Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)
"Photograph" is a song by English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran from his second studio album, "×" (2014). Sheeran wrote the song with Snow Patrol member Johnny McDaid, who had a piano loop from which the composition developed. After recording several versions with other producers, Sheeran eventually solicited help from Jeff Bhasker; the collaboration generated a version that Bhasker further enhanced for months. The ballad derives its music primarily from an acoustic guitar, piano and programmed drums. With visually descriptive lyrics, it discusses a long-distance relationship inspired by Sheeran's own experience of being away from his then-girlfriend while he was on tour.
The song received generally supportive commentary from critics, who noted the lyrics and Sheeran's use of love for all people. "Photograph" served as the fifth and final single from the album. It reached the top five on the main singles charts in more than five countries. In the US, where it peaked at number ten, "Photograph" became the third single from the album to have reached within the top ten. In the UK, it reached number fifteen and has since been certified quadruple platinum. The single has also been certified double platinum in Australia and Canada, and platinum in New Zealand and Italy.
The single's release on 23 June 2014 followed the premiere of the music video on 9 May 2015. The video is a montage of real home footage of Sheeran's infancy, childhood and adolescence, providing insight on his private early life, such as his inclination to playing music instruments and fondness of Lego. The video was nominated for Best Video at the 2016 Brit Awards. Sheeran performed the song on television shows and on his x Tour, which ran from 2014 to 2015.
Background and composition.
Ed Sheeran wrote "Photograph" in May 2012 with Johnny McDaid, instrumentalist and background vocalist of the Irish band Snow Patrol. Sheeran toured with the band as a support act in select North American dates. McDaid had a three-note piano loop that became the basis of "Photograph". The song's development began when Sheeran, while in a hotel room in Kansas City, was humming "loving can hurt, loving can hurt" to the loop that was playing on McDaid's laptop. Sheeran recalled: "I started humming, and then [McDaid] put a beat behind it."
They developed ideas for the song while Sheeran was building a Lego and McDaid was working on his laptop. After four hours, Sheeran picked up a guitar and they began properly structuring the composition. According to Sheeran, they ended up composing the song "within about half an hour". Both realized what had transpired only after listening back to the song the following day; they then decided on recording it. Sheeran completed writing the song while in Denver, Colorado.
Sheeran credited "Photograph" as the first record "properly" completed for his second studio album. According to him, he had "probably" recorded 60 to 70 versions of the song; these varied from live to that with piano accompaniment. Aside from the earlier versions he made with McDaid, Sheeran had recordings with songwriter-producer, Jake Gosling, who produced much of Sheeran's debut album, and producer, Rick Rubin, who was involved in other tracks from the follow-up album. However, Sheeran thought these versions "never fit" and he eventually solicited help from producer, Jeff Bhasker. This particular collaboration generated a version that Bhasker continued to enhance for several months. Emile Haynie was credited on the album's liner notes for his additional production. On 24 January 2015, Sheeran recalled the backstory of "Photograph" for the VH1 Storytellers.
Music, lyrics and inspiration.
An acoustic pop ballad, "Photograph" derives its music from an acoustic guitar, piano, strings, organ, electric and bass guitar, and programmed drums. The melody builds up with the guitar strums and piano keys; the drums, strings, organ etc. then follow. It has a tempo of 108 beats per minute and the originally published key is in E major. "Photograph" features a chord progression that is common in popular music.
The lyrics to the song chronicle a long-distance relationship. It contains detailed imagery such as the protagonist remembering his girlfriend kissing him "under the lamppost, back on 6th street", and keeping a picture of him "in the pocket of [her] ripped jeans". These lyrics were inspired by Sheeran's own experience on a long-distance relationship. He dated Nina Nesbitt, a Scottish singer/songwriter, for more than a year. While in this relationship, Sheeran spent five months away from Nesbitt: three months while on a concert tour with Snow Patrol and further two months on his own tour. At his concert in Kansas City on 27 June 2017, Sheeran noted that he wrote "Photograph" at Kansas City's Intercontinental Hotel during a previous tour.
Release.
In February 2013, Sheeran played a demo version of "Photograph" to a German radio station. This performance was not recorded in film or audio. Sheeran played the song again pre-release at a show at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York on 14 July 2014. Taylor Swift was seen at the concert, notably, the only person in the crowd who knew the lyrics to this unreleased song." Sheeran favoured the song as one of the best in the album and claimed: "I think ["Photograph"] will be the one that will change my, kind of, career path." He also asserted that "Photograph" would serve as the "collateral" song that could "sell [the album]" even if the rest of the tracks would not prove appealing.
The song was released as an "instant grat" digital download to the iTunes Store on 20 June 2014; it served as the final of seven promotional singles from his second studio album, × (2014). On 22 April 2015, through his Twitter account, Sheeran announced that "Photograph" would be the next single off "×". It was released on 11 May 2015 to hot adult contemporary format, and the following day to contemporary hit radio in the US. On 12 June 2015, "Photograph" was released to the German market in CD format with the B-side, "I Will Take You Home". The latter track was featured in the American television sitcom, "Cougar Town".
"Photograph" served as the fifth and last single released from the album. Of the five singles, preceded by two upbeat songs such as the lead single, "Sing", "Photograph" was the second mellow track released from "×". The first was "Thinking Out Loud", the third single, which is a blue-eyed soul record produced by Gosling. According to Sheeran, no one from his label wanted "Thinking Out Loud" as a single release; they favoured "Photograph" as the "big song". "Photograph" was supposed to be the main single, but when "Thinking Out Loud" spent several weeks within the top 20 on the UK Singles Chart albeit not in radio rotation, the latter song was kept as the third single.
Critical reception.
Upon the album's release, critical response to "Photograph" was generally positive. In his track-by-track review of "x" for "Billboard" magazine, Jason Lipshutz suggested that the line "Loving can hurt sometimes/But it's the only thing that I know" in "Photograph" was the "lynchpin line of the whole album". Sarah Rodman of "The Boston Globe" had the same sentiment; she called the song "haunting" and felt it "[crept] up on you with [its] tunefulness". Jamieson Cox of "Time" described Sheeran's use of "detail and powerful imagery" in the lyrics as "smart"; Cox opined that it "[brought the song] to life".
Neil McCormick of "The Daily Telegraph" deemed the track "soulful balladry" and felt it showcased that Sheeran "can slip smoothly through the gears" on the album. Lipshutz described his singing as being "restrained" over "hesitant" acoustic guitar strum before the "arena drums kick in". Paul Cantor of "Vibe" picked "Photograph" as one of the standouts from the album, and noted that the song's "brooding arrangement is an emotional roller coaster". Kitty Empire of "The Observer" called "Photograph" a "swelling ballad", and suggested that Sheeran's writing was "particularly calculated". In his review for MusicOMH, John Murphy also felt that "Photograph" was "calculated and a bit cynical, almost as if it's been written specifically as a soundtrack to a particularly emotional scene in a US television series".
On her analysis of the lyrical content of the album, Annie Zaleski of "The A.V. Club" expressed that Sheeran's "self-awareness extends to the rest" of the album by tackling homesickness in "Photograph", for instance. Meanwhile, Carolyn Menyes of the Music Times wrote in her review of the song that "in the grander scheme of x, 'Photograph' doesn't quite seem to line up lyrically", and noted that most of the album's songs explored "the feelings of a lover scorned, cheating exes and a little bit of the excess life". She also said: "Simply put: 'Photograph' is one of Sheeran's more simplistically beautiful songs."
McDaid's involvement in the song was noted by a few critics. Kevin Harly of "The Independent" wrote: "If you didn’t know Snow Patrol's Johnny McDaid produced the ballad 'Photograph', its stolid plod through clichés about how lovin' 'can hurt' and 'heal' should tell you". Meanwhile, Dave Hanratty of "Drowned in Sound" remarked: "... the cloying 'Photograph' ... is co-written and produced by a member of Snow Patrol should surprise nobody, given that it follows their heartstring-tugging script so resolutely. At least it moves." "The Herald"'s Alan Morrison felt that "Photograph" was "identikit Snow Patrol".
Chart performance.
"Photograph" and the rest of the album's tracks entered the UK Singles Chart due to high streaming rates. The single debuted at number 44 on the chart week ending 5 July 2014, ten months prior to the single's release. It peaked at number 15, and has spent 50 weeks on the chart as of the week ending 5 November 2015. On 17 March 2017, the British Phonographic Industry certified the single quadruple platinum for combined sales of 2.4 million units. As of September 2017, the song has accumulated 386,000 copies in actual sales, and with 96 million streams, it has a combined total of 1,347,000 units.
In the US, the single reached number 10 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and marked the third top 10 from the album. With "Photograph", Sheeran also became the ninth male solo artist since 2010 to spawn four top 20 hits from a single album, excluding deluxe editions. In specific formats such as the Mainstream Top 40, the single reached the top 10 on the week ending 29 August 2015; it gave the album four that have achieved the threshold. The single was first certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America on 21 July 2015, double platinum on 29 February 2016 and triple platinum on 16 August 2017. As of June 2016, the song has sold 1,551,000 copies in the US. Elsewhere, the single reached top five in Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Slovakia, and South Africa.
In April 2015, commercial streaming company Spotify released a report of the most streamed tracks worldwide under the category sleep. "Photograph" placed at number 18; it joined Sheeran's other six songs ranked in the top 20. Sleep is one of the company's most popular categories that, according to Spotify, "people also use for general relaxation and to help themselves unwind". "The Guardian" columnist Tim Dowling suggested that the report was an indication of "very popular, slightly mellow songs that keep cropping up on sleep playlists" but not a list of a "carefully curated journey to unconsciousness".
Controversy.
On 9 June 2016, it was reported that Sheeran was being sued by songwriters Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard, writers of Matt Cardle's 2011 single "Amazing", for $20 million for copyright infringement. The lawsuit says: "Given the striking similarity between the chorus of Amazing and Photograph, (the) defendants knew when writing, publishing, recording, releasing, and distributing Photograph that they were infringing on a pre-existing musical composition." The lawsuit was privately settled in April 2017, with no admission of guilt.
In March 2022, while in court for a separate lawsuit over his song "Shape of You", Sheeran said that he settled the "Photograph" complaint on the advice of his lawyers, as the case was "more trouble than it was worth". He later also said he was on tour at the time, and was advised that the culture around copyright claims meant that he "probably would lose". He thought that settling the case opened a floodgate of claims, and led to the "Shape of You" lawsuit. After he won the "Shape of You" case, he said he regretted settling the claim for "Photograph", not because of the money involved, but because it changed his relationship with the song. He said: "I didn't play 'Photograph' for ages after that. I just stopped playing it. I felt weird about it, it kind of made me feel dirty."
Music video.
An accompanying music video for "Photograph" was released on 9 May 2015. The video is a montage of real home footage. Sheeran sourced the clips from his father, who was then compiling it into DVDs for their family Christmas present. He initially intended the clips for inclusion in a documentary that was being produced around that time; but looking through the collection, he thought it might work for a music video. Sheeran also admitted he could not attend to an actual video shoot, hence he opted for the montage. Emil Nava, who had previously worked with Sheeran on his other promotional music videos, directed "Photograph". Editor Ellie Johnson worked with Sheeran's father while in central London. According to Johnson, they spent a weekend gathering the clips used in the montage.
The montage chronicles Sheeran's infancy, childhood and adolescence (1990s and 2000s). It features Sheeran playing various music instruments (including piano, cello, bass, acoustic guitar and drums), suggesting that he was musically inclined at a young age. He is also shown displaying his skill in Bodhrán, an Irish frame drum. Other footage depicts a teen Sheeran busking in Galway, Ireland. In another clip before the final, Sheeran is shown performing to a crowd at a festival. Daniel Kreps of "Rolling Stone" noted that the clips also revealed Sheeran's "lifelong obsession with Legos", an object the latter referenced on his 2011 single "Lego House". Another clip shows Sheeran as a toddler in the bathtub with a toy that appears to be of Thomas the Tank Engine.
According to Ryan Book of the Music Times, the media form utilized in the montage contradicted the song's title. Kreps stated that the video was reminiscent of "", a documentary film about Nirvana front man and 1990s rock icon Kurt Cobain. According to Kreps, the private life of both artists in their youth were revealed through real home videos.
Live performances and usage in media.
"Photograph" was performed on television prior to its commercial release. On 13 December 2014, Sheeran appeared on "The X Factor UK", where he gave his first televised performance of the song. This performance contributed to the song's first ascent inside the top 40 on the UK Singles Chart. Sheeran also performed the song for various US television shows such as on "Good Morning America", "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon", and "Undateable", at Canada's Much Music Video Awards, and at the 2015 Global Citizen Festival. The song was part of the setlist in Sheeran's x Tour; the concert tour ran from 2014 to 2015.
English singer Foxes covered the song for the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge.
Other recordings.
The song was recorded by Jordan Feliz, for his debut studio album, "Beloved", released by Centricity Music. A critic says the acoustic rendition shows, "his falsetto shining", while another writes it is an "incredible" cover song, on a track meant to convey the temporal nature with which worldly mortal relationships have compared to one with God's son Jesus Christ. Jessica Mauboy covered the song on her 2016 album, "".
In 2021, The Portraits (an alt-folk duo, Jeremy and Lorraine Millington, previously known for a 2020 cover of "Together in Electric Dreams" with their daughter, which they said was similar to the 2021 John Lewis advert song) released a cover of "Photograph" with their 15-year-old daughter, Ciara Mill, on lead vocals again and a Somerset choir called the Skylarks backing them, alongside The Somerset County orchestra. Picked as one of the Official Charts Company's Christmas No 1 Contenders, the record has been recorded as a charity release for Cruse Bereavement Support and Mental Health Ireland and comes with a video which features 300 photos of people who lost their lives during the Covid pandemic.
It was performed by Trace Adkins and Iñigo Pascual on the second episode of the country music drama series "Monarch".
Credits and personnel.
Credits adapted from the album liner notes.
Charts.
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References.
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