Ed Sheeran - Don't

For obvious reasons, it's most appropriate to mention this anecdote here. The story goes that Ed Sheeran decided to remove all the explicit language from "x" after a conversation with a cab driver. The cab driver's daughter was a big fan of his music, but the cab driver would never be able to take her to one of his shows because he swears too much in his songs. Having one of the highest selling albums of the last 12 months is not something that just happens upon you. There's a lot of marketing involved and a cynical me would possibly suggest that this was an obvious case of sanitising for the purpose of wider appeal. After all, no one needs to worry about what version they're buying, radio have no trouble putting songs like "Don't" on the airwaves! A more me, me comes to think other things:

-I've never met someone before who had a parent who worked as a cab driver, and that's not at all due to the ethnic demographics of the people I was around as a kid and the people who worked at our local taxi agency. It's just something that never happened
-Gosh though how lame must that sound at school when someone has to say at school that their dad is a cab driver?!
-I wonder how often the cab driver in this story comes across famous faces and if he's able to keep it 300 (like the Romans) because of it
-I wonder why Ed Sheeran needed a taxi
-I wonder if this song was really originally going to be called "Don't". Thanks to the Rick Ross remix of this version, I now know what the song was going to sound like presuming they didn't change it, and there is far less emphasis on the word 'don't'. Rather it's on par with "I Don't F**k With You", and you couldn't imagine that being called "Don't" could you?
-I read too many marsbars reviews last night and I am no marsbars. I am sorry.

It's slightly confusing to me that this got the go-ahead to be a single considering that though. Once you take out the 'f**k', Ed no longer sounds particularly edgy, and instead retreats to sounding needy. Not to mention in an odd way, like, 'this isn't a long term relationship, but how dare that woman who shares the common feature with me of earning money through our first EVER #1 hits go sleep with someone else!' Also if Ed wanted to prove to me that he's not in on this whole safe marketing thing, he'd cut the Carly Simon game and just say who it's about. That he hasn't means that the Wikipedia article on the song can't even mention it. It's not like the song doesn't already give him a wonky image, just out with it already.

It's a pretty nice groove though. I seem to like it most when I just hear a small sample of the song in soundgrabs, putting the most emphasis on the "California Love"-esque beat. Hearing it in full can be a bit of a chore primarily because it's one of the 10-20 decreed songs to benefit the most from streaming in the charts, and suffice to say that I've heard this old thing many, many times.

Also 'A lover to burn' is some Michael Bay level subtlety. 3.8