LONDON — Ed Sheeran sang a brief burst of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” in London’s High Court on Tuesday (March 8), while giving evidence in a copyright trial over one of his biggest hits.
Sheeran is in a legal dispute with songwriters Sami Chokri, who performs under the name Sami Switch, and Ross O’Donoghue over Sheeran’s 2017 hit single “Shape of You.”
Chokri and O’Donoghue argue that the global hit lifts “particular lines and phrases” from their 2015 single “Oh Why” – allegations denied by Sheeran and “Shape of You” co-writers Steven McCutcheon, better known as Steve Mac, and John McDaid.
Giving evidence for a second day in a trial expected to last up to three weeks, Sheeran sang parts of “Feeling Good” and his 2013 single “I See Fire,” as well as the “Oh I, Oh I, Oh I” chorus hook from “Shape of You,” to illustrate that the melody he is accused of copying is a commonly used “minor pentatonic” pattern, the Press Association reports.
“If you put them all in the same key, they’ll sound the same,” Sheeran, 31, testified. He claims to have never heard “Oh Why” before the plaintiffs brought their case.
While facing questions over how “Shape of You” was created, a short clip of an unreleased Sheeran song was mistakenly played during the court hearing, prompting a confused reaction from its author.
“That’s a song I wrote last January,” Sheeran asked his lawyers. “How did you get that?” The court was told that the wrong folder on McCutcheon’s laptop had been accidentally opened.
The dispute over “Shape of You” dates to May 2018, when Sheeran and his co-authors launched legal proceedings, asking the High Court to declare they had not infringed Chokri and O’Donoghue’s copyright. Several months later, Chokri and O’Donoghue issued their own claim for “copyright infringement, damages and an account of profits in relation to the alleged infringement.”
Released in January 2017 alongside “Castle On The Hill” as one of two lead singles from Sheeran’s third studio album ÷ (Divide), “Shape of You” topped numerous charts around the world, including Australia, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the Billboard Hot 100, where it held the No. 1 spot for 12 weeks and spent a total of 59 weeks on the U.S. chart.
To date, “Shape of You” has registered 2.2 billion on-demand streams in the U.S and 2.98 million U.S downloads, according to MRC data, while the track has logged 9.2 billion in cumulative U.S. radio audience impressions.
In December, “Shape of You” became the first song to reach three billion streams on Spotify. The song also won best pop solo performance at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.
The court heard that “Shape Of You” was written at McCutcheon’s Rokstone Studios in London in October 2016, where McCutcheon initially came up with a marimba sound.
Asked by Andrew Sutcliffe QC, representing Mr Chokri and Mr O’Donoghue, about the similarities between the “Oh Why” and “Oh I” chorus hooks, Sheeran told the court that he, McDaid and McCutcheon wrote “Shape Of You” together: “all of us three in a circle, bouncing back and forth. That was how it originated,” according to the BBC.
The singer said an early version of the song included the phrase “Hey yo” as a hook but was changed because its similarity to “No Diggity” by Blackstreet was “too close to the bone.”
A reference to a melody from TLC’s 1999 song “No Scrubs” that featured in an early version of “Shape of You” was also altered during the songwriting process, the court heard, after an attempt to clear its use had already been initiated. “No Scrubs” co-writers Kandi Burruss and Tameka “Tiny” Cottle and Kevin “She’kspere” Briggs were added to the song’s credits shortly after its release.
Sheeran revealed that he’d originally envisioned “Shape of You” as being a song for Rihanna or British girl group Little Mix, saying that he believed it clashed with “Castle On The Hill” – his preferred choice as lead single from Divide.
“It doesn’t fit with the rest of the album,” said Sheeran. “I didn’t want to put it out and I was subsequently proved wrong.”
Earlier in proceedings, Sheeran was accused by Sutcliffe of being an “obsessive music squirrel” who consumes “music voraciously.”
“I am a music fan, I like music, I listen to music,” Sheeran replied, insisting he was “not plugged into” the U.K. music scene in 2015 at the time when “Oh Why” was released.
In a written witness statement submitted to the court, Sheeran said that he has “always tried to be completely fair in crediting anyone who makes any contribution to any song I write” and has “even given credits to people who I believe may have been no more than a mere influence for a songwriting element.”
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