Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift have decided to bless our ears with another beautiful ballad. This time around, they reunited for a remix of Ed’s song “The Joker and The Queen” that originally appeared in his album, =. While the song is already tear-inducing on it’s own, the nostalgia worked into the music video makes me want to bawl my eyes out (don't worry, in a good way!).

 

 

The music video is a continuation of the world created in Taylor’s video for her song “Everything Has Changed” featuring Ed. That song’s video starred Ed and Taylor lookalikes, Ava and Jack, and a sweet relationship between them. Fast forward almost a decade later (AHHHH how has it been that long?), and we have this new music video featuring the same actors, Ava Ames and Jack Lewis, playing the main characters. Cute! 

 

The new music video’s storyline focuses on the sad part of graduating high school and growing up. We see college-aged Ava and Jack (their character names are the same as their real names) driving away to start their new chapters in different places. While they are apart during most of the video, there are parallels shown of them doing typical first year things like eating alone in nervousness and going to their first party. But there are also callbacks from the first video, like Ava and Jack looking at a framed photo of them from when they were playing guitar together in the first video. 

 

We don’t get to see Ed and Taylor play their parents like we did in the first video, but there are still symbolic glimpses of them. One of the most obvious moments is where we see Ava doodling the number 13 in a notebook, which is Taylor’s lucky number. Another moment in the video featured a real text exchange that happened between Ed and Taylor years ago.

 

These are the kind of projects that make me excited about music and pop culture in general. There’s a comfort in knowing that they made this because they genuinely care about each other and have a great friendship. It’s easy to assume that some collaborations are created solely based on the business of it all, which is why Taylor and Ed’s collaborations feel like a treat. There’s also no denying that they are two of the best songwriters in the game, so it’s great that we are able to see them work together and make some awesome art come to life

This is the duo’s fourth collaboration together, and after seeing this, I really hope we get to see more! I’m thinking marriage, a big house, and some cute babies for Ava and Jack’s next chapter. (Sarah: This is starting to sound like Robsten fanfic.)

My final thoughts? Ed and Taylor’s friendship is so pure and we must protect it at all costs.