After waiting an entire five years since “Shape of You” was the song of the summer in 2017 (alongside “Despacito”)—a single many are still trying to get out of their heads—it’s as though Ed Sheeran was waiting for the perfect moment to come back at us with “Bad Habits.” Obviously, even if he had it ready in 2020, that wasn’t going be the time to put it out. Nor is now, really, what with the pandemic not actually being over. But as far as everyone with “COVID fatigue” and a vaccine is concerned, it simply has to be. Sheeran would seem to agree… if the content of the lead single from his forthcoming album is any indication. And even if he doesn’t—based on the lyrical content that actually looks back on his “bad boy” days with something like regret—he knows that’s what everyone else wants. And, as performers are wont to be people pleasers, perhaps he’s just giving the masses what they desire.
Enter the mid-tempo anthem for a cautious, PTSD-laden summer. Or what ought to be one despite the public inevitably getting buck wild as they persist in ignoring that the disease still hasn’t been tamed. But, of course, once something has been “conquered” within the more well-to-do populations, it no longer bothers anyone. Nonetheless, Sheeran appears torn between giving us all-out “Shape of You” “crunkness” on “Bad Habits,” instead slightly tempering it with the tinge of “regret” that comes from giving oneself entirely to the “nocturnal activities” that, in the present, can only lead to more corona mutations in addition to garden variety STDs. But who cares when the potential for a real, live orgasm delivered by another human being is possible?
Which is why Sheeran doesn’t want to hit us too much over the head with the cliche imagery leading up to this “one and done”/“All That She Wants” kind of moment, instead presenting us with a more “abstract” video concept. One that seeks to reinvigorate the Twilight era by wielding vampires as his “metaphor” for all the dark, shady things that can and will happen in the small hours of the night. Still, because Sheeran can’t fully advocate for going “apeshit” anymore, he infuses the narrative of the song with a more forewarning slant. And the fact that there is nothing untoward shown is highlighted when, during the lines, “My bad habits lead to late nights endin’ alone/Conversations with a stranger I barely know,” he kneels next to a child vampire in reference to that “conversation with a stranger”—innocuous enough, clearly. Aesthetically, the video has Dave Meyers all over it (being surreal yet banal at the same time), who now adds another notch on his belt by directing the video for a hit single (other recents include “positions” from Ariana Grande and “Best Friend” from Saweetie and Doja Cat; plus, Meyers has worked with Sheeran before on the video for “Antisocial”).
The opening itself appears to be Sheeran’s attempt to “catch up” to Taylor Swift’s ex, Harry Styles, with a bit of “feminization” in order to intensify some kind of “edge” for the purposes of this storyline—the one that details a man “out of control” (as if anyone can really imagine Sheeran in this kind of guise, yet it’s always the gingers innit? [cough cough Prince Harry]). Thus, he’s sitting beneath a hair bonnet in between some older ladies getting their tresses coiffed before revealing his fangs and, then, his raccoon/Kesha-inspired glitter eye makeup. Out on the street with his fellow vampire partiers, Sheeran is sure to give another plug for ketchup (never forget Heinz making an “Edchup” edition) while also alluding to the idea of blood as he squirts a healthy portion from the bottle into his box of noodles. Martini glasses on the table, apparently these vampires can intermix human cuisine as well.
In the background of it all, swarming hordes that look like quicker-paced zombies than the ones in Shaun of the Dead lend a freakish quality to the night… and make one shudder at the thought of the Delta variant. With help from Ingenuity Studios’ visual effects, the presence of this teeming crowd begins to take an even more bizarre shape as the video progresses. Mainly as bodies start to fly in their wake. He resignedly laments of surrendering to whatever the night might have in store for him, “Every pure intention ends when the good times start/Fallin’ over everything to reach the first-time spark/It started under neon lights and then it all got dark/I only know how to go too far.”
Part of that “too farness” sees Sheeran flying (or “levitating,” if you’d prefer a more Dua Lipa-centric word) over the crowds with his crew—one of them bedecked in a Madame X eyepatch—running into a cluster of yellow happy face balloons. Likely an homage to the sort of image that tends to appear on an ecstasy pill. Wanting to invoke some empathy, he then hands one of the balloons to the aforementioned child vampire before continuing on his way. His next victim is a passing car he stops in its tracks with his many vampiric superpowers (an allegory for the powerfulness and sense of immortality one has whilst on drugs), which causes a “clean-cut” Ed Sheeran to lurch forth from the broken windows. Vampire Ed catches him, looking upon him like a pathetic husk (which he literally is) that he can’t wait to discard onto the ground. This is the level-headed “Daytime Ed” he doesn’t want to deal with. And, in the present context of Sheeran’s life, the husk can also mean one of two things: either Vampire Ed is referencing the fact that he was once wholesome before the fame monster crept into his life to turn him debauched or that he has become newly wholesome in the wake of marriage and having a child. Which, indeed, can turn most people into right proper prigs. Ergo, his former self would scarcely recognize who he is now.
More chaos and havoc ensue as Vampire Ed jumps off a building against the backdrop of a vibrant full moon, the bodies around him piling up, one man visibly projectile vomiting (a nod to what happens after too much of the drink) amid the collective running amok. Unfortunately, all good times must come to an end, the consequences of the sun quickly rising leading Vampire Ed’s gang to retreat back into their respective arbitrary hovels (this means a Port-A-Potty for the Madame X eyepatch girl) while Ed himself is allowed to survive the sun’s rays. Almost as though to tell us it’s a symbol of how he’s no longer that creature of the night. That knavish bloke who would flout COVID restrictions happily if he happened to still be in his early twenties when all of this was going down. And though the song itself might have a certain “I Took A Pill In Ibiza” vibe to accommodate us for the summer, it isn’t enough to make us forget quite entirely that there’s still a killer virus (vaccinated or not) on the loose that makes having a “good time” feel like more of a source of anxiety than one of excitement.
So yes, maybe it’s for the best that Sheeran is ultimately positioning the message of the song as one punctuated by regret rather than reverence for his “party boy” past. Which is the dichotomy of making it so rife to be played in any club where bacchanalia is meant to thrive. With the people inside “swearin’ this will be the last, but it probably won’t/I got nothin’ left to lose, or use, or do/My bad habits lead to wide eyes starin’ at space/And I know I’ll lose control of the things that I say.” But fuck it, that’s the American way, de facto British way—as they are our self-serving progenitors.
