Ed Sheeran performs Thinking Out Loud live in court during Copyright trial

Grammy-winning musician Ed Sheeran is in court to deny claims that his 2014 song Thinking Out Loud is a copy of Marvin Gaye’s 1973 classic Let’s Get it On. Ed even played guitar and sang on the stand on Thursday during the testimony for the $100 million copyright infringement trial against him, to prove whether his single copied the Marvin Gaye song Let’s Get It On. (Also read: Harry Styles goes ‘never say never’ when asked about One Direction reunion: I don’t see why we wouldn’t)

The ongoing trial suit alleges that Ed Sheeran’s song planted elements directly from Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On. This issue between Ed Sheeran and the estate of the Let’s Get It On’s late co-writer, Ed Townsend, first originated in 2016.

Now as per a report by People, Ed talked about his process of writing a song and said how he can write almost eight to ten songs a day now, which was previously one or two songs a day as a teenager. “If a song takes longer than a day, it’s not worth pursuing,” he said. On Thursday, Ed Sheeran played the opening line of Thinking Out Loud in an attempt to rebut the testimony of the plaintiff’s expert witness, Alexander Stewart. The singer also claimed that this week alone, he has written 10 songs.

The singer then went on to detail how he created Thinking Out Loud, and said that it was a “very collaborative” process between him and the co-writer Amy Wedge. He said that he was inspired to make the song after listening to Amy Wedge go through the chords ahead of dinner and it struck him instantly. Ed also revealed that initially the song was supposed to have the line “I’m singing out now” but it was then changed to “I’m thinking out loud.” He also sang both the versions in court, as well as the opening chords on his guitar.

Earlier on Tuesday, the singer had said during his appearance on the trail, “If I’d done what you’re accusing me of doing, I’d be an idiot to stand on stage in front of 20,000 people and do that. It is my belief that most pop songs are built on building blocks that have been freely available for hundreds of years.”