“I Can Forgive Ed Sheeran For Not Taking A Stand, But I Can’t Forgive Galway Girl”

AS part of WWN’s Opinions series, we give a voice to people who really don’t deserve it. This week, longtime Ed Sheeran fan Derek Creggan faces a crisis:

“They say we must separate the art from the artist and I once believed such a sentiment to be true but there’s only so far such an outlook can take you. Today, I say enough is enough.

I have nothing but praise for Ed’s talented fence-sitting, both sidesings and selective and carefully calibrated political stances. They call him the non-offensive, brand aware and commercially sensitive GOAT for a reason. I respect his game, I’m envious even, that’s the art, the the magic we marvel at. But when the artist writes Galway Girl, you can’t turn a blind eye or equivocate in a loop like a bland and basic guitar pedal masquerading as complex and intricate.

It sickens me to my stomach that fans of falling in line and obeying the US corporate and politic class’s feeling that genocide shouldn’t distract from money can just ignore the crimes of writing ‘I met her on Grafton street right outside of the bar’ despite Grafton Street having no pubs on it.

How I wish I could just enjoy the fact that when it comes to convenient ‘I stay out of politics’ while actually reinforcing one particular strand of politics, Sheeran is up there among the best to ever do it.

But it will always be gnawing away at me when I try to enjoy his bizarre use of bullets points in a social media statement… ‘this fucker wrote that abomination’.

War crimes, hey, they’re something you can equivocate over and pretend are more complicated and nuanced than they are but crimes against music? I don’t think that’s something I can ignore any longer and nor should you.

And if there’s anything I’ve learned from this sorry Galway Girl debacle, that I could impart to headline acts, make sure you never book any acts with a functioning moral compass and intact conscience. Take notes Taylor”.