The documentary-style short shows Sheeran watching fans’ footage from their old phones, too
“The song is all about finding my old phone,” Ed Sheeran says of his latest single, “Old Phone,” in the new music video for it. “I was finding text messages from people that aren’t even here anymore, and reading conversations with people that I wish that I could have conversations with now. So, I thought I’d build a pub somewhere and do a gig, but I put it out there to my fans and said ‘If you want to come to this gig, go on your old phone and find a message that means a lot to you, or a video that means a lot to you.”
The music video is that vision realized, a documentary-style short directed by Emil Nava that tracks the pub being built in Ipswich, Massachusetts. A large crowd convenes around it and Sheeran. He hands out handshakes, gives high-fives hanging out of an SUV, and takes photos with fans before the pub is opened. He performs outside it, the camera zooming in on people recording the show with their new phones, and then, later, a more intimate crowd watches projections of the images they submitted on a wall outside. An older woman describes her video of her four-year-old and preteen daughters playing in the street. “They are two of five, two are on this side of heaven, the other three are on the other side,” she says.
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The video culminates in an “Old Phone” performance inside the pub, where Sheeran and his guests drink dark beers. In other clips, Sheeran is watching his own footage in a small room, his eyes glassy towards the end. “It was it was really cool to watch that and to be able to just share with him some of our stories,” the mother from earlier says.
“Old Phone” follows “Azizam” as Sheeran’s singles from his forthcoming album Play, set to arrive everywhere on September 12. Over the past few weeks, Sheeran foreshadowed the song by sharing rare photos from his real old phone and launching the @teddysoldphone Instagram account. Per a press release, he had stopped using it in 2015 and transitioned to only email. He recently performed the song for the first time on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
