Ed Sheeran Sings and Plays Snippets of ‘Thinking Out Loud’ on Stand in Copyright Trial

variety.com:

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The trial settling the case of whether Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” plagiarized the Marvin Gaye hit “Let’s Get It On” will never likely slip into concert mode, but it came about as close as it’s likely to during the pop star’s testimony on Thursday, when he picked up a guitar and briefly sang for the Manhattan courtroom.

Sheeran performed a bit of what he said was the first version of “Thinking Out Loud,” as he and co-writer Amy Wadge developed it together at his home in England.

The song’s hook lyric was then — as he sang it — “I’m singing out now,” according to musical testimony reported by ABC News. “When I write vocal melodies, it’s like phonetics,” he testified, according to Reuters’ report, showing out “singing out now” became “thinking out loud,” Under examination from his attorney, Ilene Farkas, Sheeran described the composing of the song in 2014 as a quick and not deeply thought-out process.

He said he had just emerged from the shower when he heard Wadge playing guitar chords and was drawn to join her start developing them into a song. “I remember thinking we have to do something with that,” he said, according to ABC. “Amy definitely started strumming the chords…” Of the process, which Sheeran said took “really not that long,” he added, “We sat guitar to guitar.