“Perfect” is a song by English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran from his third studio album in 2017. After the album’s release, it charted at number four in the UK. On 21 August 2017, Billboard announced that “Perfect” would be the fourth single from the album. The song was serviced to pop radio in September 2017 as the third single from the album in the United States (fourth overall). Originally peaking at number four in March 2017, the song re-entered the chart later that year. It eventually reached number one in the UK and the US Billboard in December 2017. “Perfect” became the UK Christmas number one song for 2017 and also peaked at number one in sixteen other countries.
The second version of the single, titled “Perfect Duet”, with American singer Beyonce, was released in December 2017. Another duet with Italian singer Andrea Bocelli, titled “Perfect Symphony”, was released on 15 December 2017. The song and its official music video received nominations for Song of the Year, Best Pop Video and Best Direction at the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards.
Perfect” was the first track Sheeran wrote for his third studio album. The song is a romantic ballad focusing on marriage, written about his wife-too-be Cherry Seaborn, whom he knew from school and then reconnected with when she was working in New York. Sheeran revealed that the inspiration for the lyrics came after visiting James Blunt’s house in Ibiza, where the two singers had listened to the rapper Future’s music at six in the morning. He said: “Barefoot on the grass, listening to our favorite song, which happened to be Future’s “March Madness”… I booked the studio for the day, and I had that and I was like, right, let me just flesh that out. And the song happened and was sort of finished that day. I knew it was special.”
In March 2017, Sheeran broke the record set by Frankie Laine in 1953, occupying all of the top five positions in the United Kingdom, and placing nine songs in the top ten of the UK Singles Chart. Also, every single one of the sixteen tracks from his new album entered the top twenty. “Perfect” peaked at number four and the song debuted at that position, selling 62,599 copies. After Sheeran’s performance of “Perfect” on The X Factor in November 2017, the song reached a new peak in the UK, advancing to number three. The Beyonce version, released in December 2017, enabled it to become Sheeran’s fourth number-one single With UK sales of 1,048,313, “Perfect” became Sheeran’s tenth million-selling single. As of 2021, it is the longest runner on the UK Singles top 75, with 130 weeks spent on that chart, breaking a 49 year old record that had previously been held by “My Way” by Frank Sinatra (124 weeks).
In September 2017, a lyric video for “Perfect” was released on Sheeran’s YouTube channel. The music video for “Perfect” was released on Sheeran’s YouTube channel on 9 November 2017. The video stars Zoey Deutch and was directed by Jason Koenig, who also directed the video for “Shape of You”. The video was filmed at the Austrian ski resort of Hintertux and shows Sheeran and Deutch going on a ski trip with friends, with the two dancing in the snow and ending up in a cabin together. Ross McNeilage who writes for MTV UK called the video a “Christmas dream” for its wintery visual. While praising the simple story and the video’s cinematography, McNeilage noted that Zoey Deutch acts opposite to the superstar as his love interest and we watch as they “coyly flirt until they realise their love for one another and slow dance in the snow together.” As of October 2021, the music video has received almost 3 billion views on YouTube, making it the 27th most viewed video on the site.
