U.K. singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran, the No. 1 streamed artist on Spotify in 2017, has released an acoustic version of “Perfect” featuring Beyoncé.
Written about a first love, “Perfect” was released on ÷ , his third studio album, which dropped in March 2017. “Perfect” peaked at No. 3 in the United Kingdom and hit the top of the charts in Austria, Belgium, France and Switzerland.
With Beyoncé injecting new life into the song, it’s once again climbing the charts and is currently sitting at No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart (dated December 16th).
Sheeran and Beyoncé first made acquaintances when they performed together for a Stevie Wonder tribute at the Grammy Awards in 2015 and also teamed up for the Global Citizen Festival in the same year.
In an interview with ET, Sheeran said they had been working on the song since May. “Obviously she had twins [in June], and we finished [the song] in September, so I’ve been holding onto it since then.”
According to Sheeran, it was input from Beyoncé that brought the song back to its acoustic roots. “The original version of ‘Perfect’ was just an acoustic guitar and she rung me up and was like, ‘I don’t know how you feel about this but I’ve taken all the instruments off it and it’s just gonna be acoustic guitar,’” explained Sheeran. “And I was like, ‘Ah that’s great, because it used to be that!’ Then when we got in together, it wasn’t so much notes, it was very much like a back and forth thing, like, ‘What’d you think of this?’ Or ‘What do you think of this?’ and [we were] probably in the studio for four hours.”
Watch Sheeran’s ET interview and listen to “Perfect” below.