A Subway-Busking Ed Sheeran Covered "Pink Pony Club" in Disguise as an Emo Kid
The English singer-songwriter hid his signature red hair with a black wig to sing Chappell Roan's hit at the 30 Rock train stop.
English hitmaker Ed Sheeran has joined an elite group that includes Miley Cyrus, Bad Bunny, and Green Day: The April 8 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon presented "Subway Busking with Ed Sheeran," in which he performed a strummy Chappell Roan cover and his new single, "Azizam."
"Hey, guys, I'm in the 50th Street subway station right below Rockefeller Center with Ed Sheeran. The two of us are about to go on a subway platform and start busking in disguise," Jimmy Fallon said, seemingly adopting a new persona inspired by his disguise. (wigs ARE transformative). Dressed in all black, Sheeran and Fallon both wore black emo-style hair and various facial piercings in an attempt to fool the public.
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Ed Sheeran played an acoustic cover of "Pink Pony Club" while subway busking with Jimmy Fallon
Fallon introduced their fake band as Frat Poison once they hopped on the mics, and Sheeran launched into an acoustic cover of Chappell Roan's hit "Pink Pony Club." As well-disguised as Sheeran was, there's no mistaking his vocals, and subway commuters quickly began to notice something was afoot.
By the time he and Fallon reached the song's sweeping "God, what have you done..." bridge, they'd attracted quite the crowd of fans singing along.
The two then whipped off their disguises as Sheeran launched into "Azizam," the new single from his forthcoming Play album. The musician made deft use of looping equipment with his feet as he kept playing the guitar, incorporating harmonies and instruments from the slickly-produced track. (Fallon was on vibes duty, backing up the dancer with a merry jig and some tambourine).
Watch Subway Busking with Ed Sheeran above, and watch The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon weeknights at 11:35/10:35c.
The meaning of Ed Sheeran's "Azizam"
As Sheeran explained to Fallon during his March 26 Tonight Show interview, the word "azizam" is Farsi for "my dear." The song organically came together with one of his collaborators.
"I was working with this producer, Ilya, who is Persian," Sheeran said. "And we were creating a lot of music, and he just suggested we do something within the Persian culture. We've actually done a full version in Farsi, as well."
You're definitely familiar with Ilya's previous work. The Iranian-Swedish musician has had a hand in producing Sam Smith and Kim Petras's "Unholy," Demi Lovato's "Confident," and many Ariana Grande songs including "Into You," "Greedy," and "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)."
Sheeran told Fallon the song is even more cross-cultural than he realized. "I feel like the song itself — we created it within Persian culture originally, and then as I was doing it...I grew up with a lot of Irish [traditional] music in my household and I was like, 'These rhythms and scales are like the same as trad music. It's just different instruments.'"
"And then, when I was in China, I was working with some classical musicians out there, and it was the same sort of thing," he continued. "So I did a version with some traditional Chinese musicians, some traditional Indian musicians when we were touring there — and then we did some bluegrass musicians in Nashville, trad musicians in Ireland," and a Second Line-style version in New Orleans.
"Music is a universal language — even if it is all in a different language, there's like, this thread that goes through," Sheeran added. The singer also confirmed that his upcoming album will be titled Play.
