Released on June 2, 2025, Oh Holy Spirit, Be My Friend shot to #1 in 27 countries within hours—not just for its aching melody and lyrical purity, but for the voices that carried it.
Celine Dion, singing through the pain of a rare neurological disorder.
Ed Sheeran, grieving the sudden death of his best friend and tour manager just months earlier.
Two artists from opposite corners of music.
Bound by grief.
United by something neither of them could quite explain.
“It wasn’t just a song session,” Sheeran confessed in a recent interview with Q Magazine. “It was… like something was in the room with us.”
The project began with a letter.
Ed Sheeran, in early 2025, reportedly hand-wrote a message to Celine Dion after seeing a leaked video of her struggling to walk, yet still humming to herself in a hospital hallway.
The letter read:
“If you ever have one last song in you, I’d be honored to write it with you. Even if you can’t sing it, I’ll carry the rest.”
No one expected her to respond.
But weeks later, Ed got a voice memo.
It was 14 seconds long. Just Celine, whispering:
“Let’s write something the angels might want to hear.”
The session happened in secret at an abandoned chapel in East London that had been converted into a recording space. Producer Rick Rubin was brought in. No cameras, no social media. Just piano, candlelight, and pain.
And then… something supernatural.
According to Rubin, the song wrote itself.
“We laid down chords. Celine hummed the chorus once. Ed finished the verse before she even sat back down. I’ve produced hundreds of sessions—but this one? It felt like a séance.”
Sheeran later revealed that the bridge—“When silence screams louder than prayer / Will You still find me there?”—was written in a single take, moments after Celine fell into tears and whispered her late husband’s name.
Oh Holy Spirit, Be My Friend is not just a song. It is a sonic cathedral of vulnerability—where two of music’s most beloved voices met in the valley between despair and transcendence.
Critics have called it “the modern Ave Maria”, “a spiritual reckoning in four minutes”, and “a miracle on vinyl.”
Celine Dion, in a rare statement posted on her website, wrote:
“This is not my comeback. This is my goodbye, dressed in gratitude.”
And Ed? He simply tweeted one sentence:
“I didn’t write this song. I listened to it being born.”
Whether you believe in the Holy Spirit or not, something holy indeed happened between those studio walls.
And now, thanks to Celine and Ed, the whole world can feel it too.
