Ed Sheeran has defended his songwriting in a New York court after it was alleged that he imitated Marvin Gaye’s song Let’s Get It On for his own hit ballad Thinking Out Loud.
The lawsuit is being brought by the heirs of Gaye’s co-writer on Let’s Get It On, Ed Townsend, and was originally filed in 2017. It alleges that Sheeran and co-writer Amy Wadge copied an ascending four-chord sequence, and its rhythm.
Appearing in person on Tuesday, Sheeran testified that Thinking Out Loud was composed by himself and Wadge in a collaborative writing session, inspired by the love held between his grandparents.
Ben Crump, a lawyer for the plaintiffs (who has previously represented George Floyd’s family) argued that a video of Sheeran performing a live mashup of Thinking Out Loud with Let’s Get It On was “a confession” of plagiarism.
Sheeran later countered: “Most pop songs can fit over most pop songs … You could go from Let it Be to No Woman, No Cry and switch back,” referring to songs by the Beatles and Bob Marley.
Sheeran bristled at times at the questioning, saying: “If I had done what you’re accusing me of doing, I’d be a quite an idiot to stand on a stage in front of 20,000 people and do that.” When cut off by lawyer Keisha Rice, he said: “I feel like you don’t want me to answer because you know that what I’m going to say is actually going to make quite a lot of sense.”
His lawyer Ilene S Farkas told the court that the plaintiffs “cannot own these common musical elements … No one owns basic musical building blocks.” In an earlier written filing, Sheeran’s team argued: “The two songs share versions of a similar and unprotectable chord progression that was freely available to all songwriters.”
Townsend’s daughter Kathryn Griffin Townsend appeared as a witness, saying she intended to “protect my father’s legacy”, but added that she had brought the case reluctantly and described Sheeran as “a great artist with a great future”.
A musicologist retained by the plaintiffs has described the chords in each song as “virtually interchangeable” while acknowledging they are slightly different. A musicologist for Sheeran has said the chord sequence is not unique, and gave numerous other examples of its use in songs by artists such as Donovan and the Seekers.
At the hearing, Sheeran said that after recording Thinking Out Loud, he thought “it sounded like it emulated Van Morrison, production-wise”, and cited other songs by Morrison – who he has since befriended – with similar chord sequences.
Sheeran faces a total of three different lawsuits brought by different parts of Townsend’s estate, with two more currently on hold.
Sheeran has been accused of plagiarism numerous times before. In April 2022 he won a UK court battle over biggest hit, Shape of You, after he was accused of copying a song by little-known songwriters Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue. It was concluded that Sheeran “neither deliberately nor subconsciously” copied their song Oh Why.
In 2017, he added writers of the TLC song No Scrubs to the credits of Shape of You, after similarities had been spotted by fans, though no legal case was brought against him.
Also in 2017, he settled out of court after songwriters of the Matt Cardle song Amazing claimed it had been copied by Sheeran for his song Photograph. Sheeran later said he regretted the settlement, as “the floodgates opened” to further plagiarism claims.
The New York hearings continue, and are expected to last a week.
