Songfacts®:

• Sheeran's fourth single from his debut album + finds him singing about someone whose relationship ended because of his own inability to change. The protagonist feels sorry for himself and the only way he can handle the pain is by drowning his sorrows in drink.
• Sheeran sings of getting drunk on several other + tracks. He recalls getting inebriated after breaking up with his girlfriend when she went to university on "U.N.I.." "I'm still drunk by the end of the night. I don't drink like everybody else. End up forgetting things about myself.") "Give Me Love" tells a similar story where the protagonist tells his former beau, "Maybe tonight I'll call you/ After my blood turns to alcohol/ No, I just wanna hold ya."
• The official music video is the first one filmed by Sheeran that he stars in as well. It also features his current girlfriend, Scottish-Swedish singer-songwriter Nina Nesbitt, plus a partying cat.
• Sheeran told the story of the song during an interview with the American site Pop Counter//Culture. Here's what he had to say: "I was on tour with a guy called Example and I discovered in England a drink that's like a squash drink. Do you have that over here? It's like Sunny D or something like that. If you put vodka in that, you don't really taste the vodka. I discovered that and was drinking quite a bit of that in a Glasgow gig and the night kind of disappeared along with it. I woke up on the right side of the wrong bed and missed the tour bus."