Music Review: Ed Sheeran "The A Team"

Ed Sheeran

The A Team

Album: +

Year: 2011

         Ed Sheeran remembers a smart girl he knew in school in the tragic “The A Team."

               A caring guitar opens the single, setting a empathetic tone. When comes back home to visit his parents, he often sees a girl who was in his class. She was popular, teachers loved her, and she was intellligent. People thought she would have a bright future. Now, he sees her walking down the street at night, gaunt and sickly, holding herself against the cold. She can barely make ends meet and prositutes herself for money. (“White lips, pale face/Breathing in snowflakes/Burnt lungs, sour taste/Light's gone, day's end/Struggling to pay rent/Long nights, strange men.”)

            Among his old classmates, they talk about who she’s become. In her mind, she is still the star. Since graduation, things haven’t worked out for her. He heard she went to her first choice college – an Ivy League – but wasn’t able to handle the pressure. She started doing drugs, lost her scholarship, was kicked out of school. She’s in mid-twenties and she’s been aged by the drugs and hard living she’s been doing. People say she had things too easy while in school. When life got rough for her, she couldn’t cope. He wishes he could help her. He sees the girl he once knew still inside her. (“ And they say/She's in the Class A Team/Stuck in her daydream/Been this way since eighteen/But lately her face seems/Slowly sinking, wasting/Crumbling like pastries/And they scream/The worst things in life come free to us/Cause we're just under the upper hand/And go mad for a couple grams/And she don't want to go outside tonight/And in a pipe she flies to the Motherland/Or sells love to another man/It's too cold outside/For angels to fly/Angels to fly.”)

          He’s heard she’s been in NA and rehab over the last couple years. She’s held a job as waitress for awhile. It wasn’t enough. She cries all the time, wondering what happened. Everyone who was there for her in her prime has turned away in disgust. (“Ripped gloves, raincoat/Tried to swim and stay afloat/Dry house, wet clothes/Loose change, bank notes/Weary-eyed, dry throat/Call girl, no phone.”)

         The chorus is sung again. However, he adds he expects her to not live much longer. (“And they say…
 For angels to fly/An angel will die.”)

         In the bridge, he has found out through his friends that they found her body outside underneath snow. It’s caused everyone in his circle of friends to rethink their lives. It could happen to her, it could happen to anyone of them. (“Covered in white/Closed eye/And hoping for a better life/This time, we'll fade out tonight/Straight down the line.”)

          The chorus is sung again to close the single.

Sheeran’s altruisitc, silvery vocals are well-meaning, striving to do the right thing. He wants to help but doesn’t know how. He knew of her, even had a crush on her while they went to school together. However, he’s helpess to save her.

  The heavyhanded “A Team” is an overwrought cautionary tale perfect for a long-running plot on daily soap opera.