Songfacts®:

• Ed Sheeran gave his fans an early Christmas present when he dropped this spare acoustic ballad on December 21, 2020. The song represents his first new music since July 2019's No.6 Collaborations Project album.
• Sheeran wrote the song in 2019. It finds him crooning about his love for his wife Cherry Seaborn, whom he married in January of that year.
  
  Stop the clocks, it's amazing
  You should see the way the light dances off your hair
  A million colors of hazel, golden, and red
  
  Sheeran wants those special intimate moments with Cherry to last forever.
  
  Oh, I won't be silent and I won't let go
  I will hold on tighter 'til the afterglow
  And we'll burn so bright 'til the darkness softly clears
• An afterglow can refer to the glow frequently seen in the sky after the sun has set, or to the pleasant remembrance following sex. Other artists that released songs titled "Afterglow" include INXS, Black Country Communion, Wilkinson, Small Faces, Chvrches,Young Guns and Taylor Swift.
• Cherry Seaborn and Ed Sheeran both attended Thomas Mills High School in Framlington, Suffolk. They stayed in touch after Sheeran moved to London in 2008 and started dating in 2015. They tied the knot in 2019.
  
  Seaborn has been the muse for several of Sheeran's songs, including "How Would You Feel (Paean)," "Perfect," "Hearts Don't Break Around Here" and "Best Part of Me."
• Sheeran co-wrote "Afterglow" with:
  
  Former Evanescence member David Hodges. He has also co-penned hit songs for Kelly Clarkson ("Because Of You"), Christina Perri ("A Thousand Years") and Avril Lavigne ("Here's To Never Growing Up").
  
  Fred Gibson (Fred Again), who is a frequent Sheeran collaborator, including "I Don't Care," and "Beautiful People." He also produced the song together with Sheeran. Co-production is by Parisi.
• Sheeran's self-created artwork for the single is a colorful abstract painting featuring splashes of color. The singer has been creating art since he was a child and sold his first painting, titled “Dab 2 2020," as part of a charity auction in November 2020.
• Filmed in one continuous shot, the performance video finds Sheeran playing the song on acoustic guitar in the middle of an expansive twilight scene.