Short snippet long tail: the Ellie Banke story

Oh man I miss this place. I got a new job and it’s taking me some time to figure out how to fit everything I like into my new life. The main problem is that I spend 90 mins a day in the car now. Very inefficient. The other problem is that I’m like a puppy dog and I want everyone to like me so I’ve been wagging my tail too hard (by that I mean working at night). Really need to stop that.

I have things to say about Olivia Rodrigo’s new album (it’s amazing). Also I got BTS tickets! Lots of them. I really am blessed to be married to a person who doesn’t just support my hyper fixations, but actively enables them. I’m also finally reading/listening to Dungeon Crawler Carl and it’s pretty funny. Like Ready Player One meets The Boys. It’s oddly similar to a Korean movie I watched at Easter, Omnisicient Reader: The Prophecy.

BUT I digress. This post isn’t to talk about any of those things because I don’t have time. I’ve given myself a 20 minute window within which to power post before I take my magnesium tablets and go to bed. It’ll be riddled with errors no doubt. Forgive me.

I want to tell you a story about Ellie Banke.

Ellie Banke is a singer from Illinois. She went viral in April 2025 when her vocal coach, Cheryl Porter — a social media personality in her own right — shared a video of Ellie taking on Ed Sheeran’s track Dive from his 2017 album Divide. Everyone loved that. I mean, millions of people. So many in fact, that it finally reached the ears and eyes of Ed himself. This the man who notoriously doesn’t own a mobile phone and can only be reached through intermediaries.

He said she sang it better than he did, and he’s not wrong. I can’t count the number of times I’ve watched this. There’s something about the vocal run on ‘aeroplane’ that takes me out. She makes it seem so easy, and I did karaoke on the weekend so I can tell you from recent experience that shit is not easy. Although, I’m pretty sure I crushed All Too Well.

Ed flew Ellie out to London to do a duet with him. He’s always doing cute things for the ‘gram. I get the feeling he just really loves performing, and has a clever social team who follow him around capturing his antics. Just last night, for example, Ed and Martin Garrix crashed a fan’s sisters’ wedding.

So Ellie packed her bags, gathered her family and went to London to meet her musical hero. It was extremely wholesome.

Ellie Banke seems to good for this world. A sweet summer child. It really feels like the lottery of attention couldn’t have been struck by a more worthy soul. She used her sudden notoriety to talk about her pathway through crippling stage fright and performance anxiety. She posted clips of her attempts to hit the stage at open mic nights. It’s been a whole journey, and now she’s releasing her own music and playing gigs and living the muso life she always dreamed of.

Last year, Ed announced his global LOOP tour and he invited Ellie to support him at his Chicago shows. She’s spent the last 7 months preparing, including a semi-regular instagram series called Banke Bootcamp during which she talks candidly about how her prep is going and what she’s struggling with. Honestly, it’s kinda boring but she herself is so compelling you can’t help but watch.

The Chicago gigs happened over the weekend and they were the cutest. And that’s why I’m here.

Sorry the video layouts are a bit screwed but my time is up.