Ed Sheeran 'ecstatic' over Ivor Novello songwriting award

Ed Sheeran says he's "ecstatic" to have won an Ivor Novello award, which honours artists for their songwriting.

The singer beat off competition from Adele and Florence & The Machine to pick up the prize for best song musically and lyrically for his track The A Team.

He said: "It's voted for by your peers, it's the highest kind of award you can get for songwriting - a big honour."

Adele was the big winner at today's awards picking up two prizes.

Adele wins songwriter of the year

The Someone Like You singer was named songwriter of the year and her track Rolling in the Deep was the most performed work of 2011.

Speaking to Newsbeat after collecting his award Sheeran described Adele's achievements as "phenomenal", adding "she deserves every award she's nominated for".

On his own win, Sheeran said: "I actually got a bit emotional accepting the award. It was good."

Cancelled gigs

Last week Sheeran had to deny he was entering rehab after he pulled out of a handful of gigs on his US tour supporting Snow Patrol.

He told Newsbeat: "It was just making clear that I'm not entering rehab which was speculated. That's fair enough.

"I'm lucky enough to have the best job in the world. I travel the world and make people happy by playing music. There's no chance of burning out whilst doing that. It's a brilliant job.

"I'm not a very interesting person publicly so there isn't a lot to write about me."

The Ivor Novello awards are all about recognising British and Irish songwriting and composing.

Other artists who picked up awards at the awards included Take That - honoured for their outstanding contribution and Lana Del Rey who won best contemporary song for Video Games.

Plan B was the big winner in 2011 taking home three awards.