Supermarket Flowers

"Supermarket Flowers" is a song by Ed Sheeran and part of his most recent album: Divide. This song is about his grandmother, who was in the hospital and later passed away during the production of the album. The song is written from the perspective of Sheeran’s mother talking to her mother. In the song, his grandmother is either close to passing away or just recently has, and his mother is talking to her mother.

Lyrics: Supermarket Flowers

"Supermarket Flowers" is about how although death is a daunting reality, those that we love most will end up where they belong and that death is never the end of our journeys.

In the first verse, Sheeran sings, “I took the supermarket flowers from the windowsill / I threw the day old tea from the cup / Packed up the photo album Matthew had made / Memories of a life that's been loved / Took the get well soon cards and stuffed animals.” These lines convey that consolation gifts such as flowers, get well cards, stuffed animals, etc. are simplistic, dismissive, and often meaningless. Although the people that give them have good intentions and probably do not know what else to do, their contributions can sometimes even make the situation worse. Yet, although these gifts seem meaningless, they are able to continue to exist beyond his grandmother’s death. These items that are often seen as material and sometimes even gaudy continue to be present for time to come. When the song says, “Oh, I'm in pieces, it's tearing me up, but I know,” Sheeran creates various meanings with multidimensional language. The reader can infer that the word “tearing” means that the speaker is extremely distraught and crying, but when considered in the context of the entire line, it can also be seen that it is tearing her apart emotionally, leaving her in pieces.

When people lose other people who are close to them, a common occurrence is that they often find themselves continuing to talk to the person, even with the knowledge that they will not answer. In the song, the same idea seems to be happening. The second verse is all about how she has been cleaning up the house in hope that she will come back or grieving heavily for her mother. The entire song is also written from Sheeran’s mother’s point of view and says the words “you” and “your” multiple times, indicating that she is speaking directly to her mother.

In the chorus, Sheeran sings “Spread your wings as you go / When God takes you back / He'll say, "Hallelujah, you're home" to show that everyone will end up in the right place in the end. He refers to her as an “angel” in the shape of his “[grand]mom” and knows that her time will allow her to be and go wherever she wants. “A life with love is a life that's been lived” also shows that no matter what happened during their life, no matter where they started or ended up, if they were able to experience love, they were able to achieve a positive life.