Castle On The Hill

Album

÷

Label

Atlantic Records

Genre

Folk

Composer(s)

Benny Blanco;Ed Sheeran

Entered Chart

Jan 28, 2017

Peak Date

Jan 28, 2017

Released

6 January 2017

Recorded

2015

Catalog #

Atlantic

Ed Sheeran spent most of his childhood years in the English countryside town of Framlingham, Suffolk, before moving to London at the age of 17 to pursue a music career. He pays homage on this nostalgic pop-rock number to his upbringing in the provincial Eastern England town. I miss the way you make me feel, and it's real We watched the sunset over the castle on the hill Sheeran said when introducing the track on BBC Radio 1's Breakfast Show: "This is a love song for Suffolk, because I don't think anyone has ever done that." The small market town of Framlingham is centred around a medieval castle, which Sheeran alludes to in this song. Constructed by Roger Bigod, the 2nd Earl of Norfolk about 1190, it was unusual for the time in having no central keep. Mary Tudor was living at the castle when her half-brother Edward VI died in 1553. When she seized power, Mary collected her forces there before successfully marching on London. Today Framlingham Castle is a popular tourist attraction. Sheeran penned this tune with pop producer Benny Blanco, with whom he also wrote 2014's "Don't." Sheeran told Carson Daly on 97.1 AMP Radio why he chose to pen a song in which he reflects on his upbringing. "There's a lot of positivity in my hometown, but like, there's also a lot of sadness as well," he explained, "whether it be people not coming back or people passing away or people not achieving what they could've achieved, so I just wanted to touch on it a little bit, I guess." The nostalgic George Belfield-directed video was shot in Ed Sheeran's hometown of Framlingham in Suffolk. It is a snapshot into the singer-songwriter's carefree teenage years featuring students from Thomas Mills High School, the educational establishment where he studied. One of them is a young Ed look-a-like. Report this ad Ed Sheeran's doppleganger is played by Framlingham student Hugo Fairbanks Weston. Asked by Billboard magazine what the most fun part of the shoot was, he replied: "There was a car scene where we were sort of being driven around in Fram, given a speaker and just told to listen to the music and have fun in the car really. We just had a laugh in the car, we weren't told to do much else." Speaking to Beats 1's Zane Lowe about the track, Sheeran said: "What I liked about the song is there's so much stuff that's happened to me in the last five years that I haven't really been able to talk about and put on a record. Cause I'm not a rapper I'm not someone who constantly talks about my life. My songs, my love songs will be like a snapshot of a time whereas this I could really have a verbal vomit on a song. And say everything that was in my heart that wasn't about a relationship. Cause in the songs I had previously [rapped] before apart from like 'You Need Me' or whatever. This one feels like I could vent." Sheeran doesn't tend to spend hours labouring over the lyrics with a notebook and that includes this song. "I never write anything down," he told the BBC. "That was literally just done line by line, just then and there with a microphone. I put down things that rhyme in my head, and then it forms into a song." "Listening back to it, I was like, 'Oh wow, it actually makes a lot of sense,'" Sheeran added. "But that isn't how I approached it at all."

When I was six years old I broke my leg
I was running from my brother and his friends
And tasted the sweet perfume of the mountain grass I rolled down
I was younger then, take me back to when I

Found my heart and broke it here
Made friends and lost them through the years
And I've not seen the roaring fields in so long, I know I've grown
But I can't wait to go home

I'm on my way
Driving at ninety down those country lanes
Singing to "Tiny Dancer"
And I miss the way you make me feel, and it's real
We watched the sunset over the castle on the hill

Fifteen years old and smoking hand-rolled cigarettes
Running from the law through the backfields and getting drunk with my friends
Had my first kiss on a Friday night, I don't reckon that I did it right
But I was younger then, take me back to when

We found weekend jobs, when we got paid
We'd buy cheap spirits and drink them straight
Me and my friends have not thrown up in so long, oh how we've grown
But I can't wait to go home

I'm on my way
Driving at ninety down those country lanes
Singing to "Tiny Dancer"
And I miss the way you make me feel, and it's real
We watched the sunset over the castle on the hill
Over the castle on the hill
Over the castle on the hill

One friend left to sell clothes
One works down by the coast
One had two kids but lives alone
One's brother overdosed
One's already on his second wife
One's just barely getting by
But these people raised me and I can't wait to go home

And I'm on my way, I still remember
This old country lanes
When we did not know the answers
And I miss the way you make me feel, it's real
We watched the sunset over the castle on the hill
Over the castle on the hill
Over the castle on the hill