If ginger-haired Ed Sheeran wants to sing, there’s not much I can do about it. Removal of a person’s vocal chords without their express permission is against the law, or at least it was the last time I checked.
Which is unfortunate in the perpetually breathless English singer-songwriter’s case, as his “Sing” just happens to be the most irritating song to invite itself into our eardrums in eons, thanks in large part to Sheeran’s annoyingly piercing falsetto and a cringe-worthy set of lyrics: “I want you to be my lady/To hold your body close/Take another step into the no-man’s land/For the longest time lady.” Hey, he called himself a no-man’s land, I didn’t. Having watched him on Saturday Night Live, I would have chosen “soleless, worn-out wallabee.”
I may as well confess to a prejudice against terminally pale gits who strive to get funky. In Ed’s case, this consists of singing “Oh oh oh, oh oh oh” over and over again. I count 73 “ohs” in “Sing,” which lasts exactly 3 minutes and 53 seconds, and that’s not good. Its number of “ohs” is almost exactly your annual recommended safety allowance, which means that if you listen to “Sing” but once, even by accident, you won’t be able to listen to another “Oh” all year long, at least without contracting incurable lip rickets.
Something tells me Ed Sheeran is around to stay, unlike James Blunt, who fortuitously went the way of the dodo. People seem to take to Ed, for reasons that I find inexplicable—Is it his beet-red face? Ginger mess o’ hair? Vague resemblance to Buzzy Linhart?—but my cat isn’t fooled. Whenever “Sing” comes on he climbs to the pinnacle of his cat tower and stays there, poised and vigilant, as if something very dangerous were oozing its way towards him across the apartment floor.
Or perhaps that should be “Oh oh oh, oh oh oh’ing” its way towards him across the apartment floor. Either way, Marcus the Cat, who is smarter than most people, wants nothing to do with it.
