Little Things

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Lore & Background

In February 2012, One Direction expressed interest in working with Ed Sheeran for their second studio album. In June 2012, Sheeran disclosed that One Direction would be recording two of his songs. In October 2012, Sheeran acknowledged co-writer Fiona Bevan's songwriting credit in an interview with Capital FM: "The great thing about it is I wrote that song with a girl called Fiona Bevan when I was 17 and we lost the song. I've kept in touch with Fiona, we've done gigs and stuff and about two months ago she sent me the tune and was like, 'Oh, do you remember this?' I was like, 'Yeah, I do remember that', and I was in the studio with the One Direction boys at the time and I was playing it and they were like, 'We really like that'. It's got one of my favourite lines that I've ever written in a song." On 15 October 2012, Louis Tomlinson confirmed via Twitter that "Little Things" would serve as the third single of *Take Me Home*. Sheeran described "Little Things" as an "appreciation song," and concluded: "Seventeen-year-old Ed just wrote a lot of love songs."

In Their Own Story

The music video for "Little Things" was shot entirely in black-and-white and directed by Vaughan Arnell, who had previously directed the band's video for "Live While We're Young". Tomlinson disclosed via Twitter that the video was in production on 15 October 2012, and Zayn Malik confirmed they had finished filming the following day. On each of the five days preceding the video's premiere, One Direction posted a teaser trailer online. The official video was uploaded to their Vevo account on YouTube on 2 November 2012. Arnell said he did not want to make it about anything more than a recording session: "When I first heard the track, the mix on it was so simple and so pure and you could hear all the qualities of the voices on the track, I just wanted to come up with something that when the viewer watched it, it was almost like sitting there listening to the boys sing the track." The shoot took over twelve hours to complete; Arnell said it was "one of the hardest things I've ever done" as the group performed it "over and over again because I was just trying to get different shots, different angles, different qualities." Upon release, '#LittleThingsOnVEVO' became the number-one trending topic worldwide on Twitter.

Reader's Guide

Released as the second single from *Take Me Home* on 12 November 2012, "Little Things" is a mid-tempo pop and folk ballad running for 3:39. Written in the key of G major, the beat is set in common time at 110 beats per minute. One Direction's vocal range spans from A3 to D5. Instrumentation includes guitar strings, piano lines and vocals. The song debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart on 18 November 2012, becoming One Direction's second number-one hit in the UK. *Take Me Home* and the single both debuted simultaneously at number one, making One Direction the youngest act in British chart history to achieve the feat. The single bowed at number nine on the Australian Singles Chart and has been certified quadruple platinum by the ARIA. It debuted at number two on the New Zealand Singles Chart and received a gold certification from the RIANZ. In the US, it debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 41, selling 91,000 copies in its first week, and later peaked at number 33. The single was certified platinum by the RIAA on 9 May 2013. The band performed the track on both the UK and US versions of *The X Factor* and during their three major concert tours: the Take Me Home Tour (2013), Where We Are Tour (2014) and On the Road Again Tour (2015).

Did You Know?

• The song was written by Ed Sheeran and Fiona Bevan when Sheeran was 17, and they lost the song before rediscovering it two months before One Direction recorded it.
• A 2020 survey by OnBuy found that couples who chose 'Little Things' as their first dance wedding song were the least likely to stay together, with 75% of respondents who chose the song later ending their marriage.
• The music video shoot took over twelve hours to complete, with the band performing the song repeatedly for different shots and angles.