“That was a song I had written for Divide. It just wouldn’t have made it," Sheeran explained in an interview with Carson Daly on 97.1 AMP Radio Monday morning (Jan. 9). "And then Justin took it and did his thing on it, and released it as a single and made it what it is. So going from a song that would have never been released to [being] the biggest song of last year -- it just became Billboard's #1 of 2016 of the whole year, and [was] nominated for Song of the Year at the GRAMMYs -- it just shows you that you shouldn’t always write stuff off.”
Those who pay close attention to Bieber's Twitter may have noticed that Sheeran also had a role in another one of the Bieb's 2016 hits: the Major Lazer/MØ collaboration "Cold Water." But before Sheeran actually heard the track, he didn't realize he had written yet another smash for Bieber.
“‘Cold Water’ was a weird one because I didn’t even know that song existed,” he explained. “It was a song I must’ve half-written somewhere at a time where I was writing a lot of songs and I did it at Benny Blanco’s house and then I got an email from Diplo just being like, ‘Yo! That ‘Cold Water’ song is dope! Can I have it?’ And I was like, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ so I just didn’t reply. And then he emailed and was like, “Yo, Justin [Bieber] wants to hop on the ‘Cold Water’ song. Is that cool?’ And I’m just like, ‘What are you talking about?’... And then the song came out and it was number one and I was like ‘Oh, that song!’ I remember doing it, but it was really, really slow. I remember hearing it and being like ‘That kind of sounds like me. Oh wait, it was me.'"
Just himself and another writer he writes with often. He's a writer and writes constantly both for himself and other artists, as you can see from the other part about him writing Cold Water.