{"id":1949705,"date":"2026-05-22T17:32:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T14:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1949705"},"modified":"2026-05-22T17:32:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T14:32:53","slug":"niall-horan-talks-writing-end-of-an-era-about-late-1d-bandmate-liam-payne-hope-it-means-as-much-to-you-as-it-does-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1949705","title":{"rendered":"Niall Horan Talks Writing \u2018End of an Era\u2019 About Late 1D Bandmate Liam Payne: \u2018Hope It Means as Much to You as It Does to Me\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\t\t\tTrending on Billboard\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tWhen Niall Horan was working on songs for his upcoming fourth solo album, Dinner Party<\/em> (June 5), he said he was \u201cdancing around\u201d the idea of writing a song in honor of his late One Direction bandmate Liam Payne, trying to figure out how to pay tribute to the singer who died in Oct. 2024 at age 31 after a fall from the balcony of a Buenos Aires hotel.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tLiam Payne\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tNiall Horan\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

See latest videos, charts and news<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\u201cMe and John [Ryan] had this song called \u2018End of an Era\u2019,\u201d he told the And the Writer Is<\/em> podcast this week about the track he wrote with Ryan and Julian Bunetta at the latter\u2019s studio in Nashville. \u201cI was just singing all these melodies and had this idea for a song that was leaving your past behind, but kind of with nostalgia while being excited for the future and not overthinking either.\u201d <\/p>\n

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\n\tThe trio worked on the song, talked about it and, in Horan\u2019s telling, \u201ckept getting it wrong,\u201d until Bunetta finally said, \u201c\u2018This song is about Liam, we just don\u2019t know it yet.’\u201d So after \u201cdancing around it subconsciously\u201d for a while, they finally agreed that Horan was paying tribute to his mate, at which point he said they finished writing it in five minutes.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an Instagram post earlier this week, Horan further described the origins of the midtempo tune with lyrics about letting go of things we\u2019re not supposed to. He said he, Bunetta and Ryan started working on the song several years ago and rewrote it four times without ever getting it quite right.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs we were working on this album, we revisited it,\u201d he wrote. \u201cSome songs take a minute to get to what you\u2019re actually trying to say. This one was one of those. I hope it means as much to you as it does to me.\u201d Horan said he felt the song needed \u201cits own space\u201d to breathe before the album drops.<\/p>\n

\n\tOver gentle acoustic guitar and keyboards, Horan sings, \u201cWe had it, pure magic\/ Remembering what it was like\/ Time passes so fast that I couldn\u2019t tell you goodbye,\u201d in a whispery voice. The pace picks up for the wistful chorus, \u201cFeels like letting go of\/ Things we\u2019re not supposed to\/ One breath and it\u2019s over\/ The end of an era\/ Feels like letting go of\/ Someone I want more of\/ One breath and it\u2019s over\/ The end of an era.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a song of loss and fear of loss and the end of an era,\u201d Horan told the podcast, describing the verses as alternating between sad and nostalgic. \u201cAnd they are two of the feelings that I have when I think of Liam, the sadness that he\u2019s not with us anymore,\u201d he added, describing getting goose bumps as he discussed his friend. \u201cBut also looking back at the good times and growing up together and doing all the things we\u2019ve spoke about for the last hour \u2026 making records together and growing up together in a mad industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHoran is gearing up to play at the BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend show in Houghton Le Spring, U.K. on Sunday (May 24). He\u2019ll play the Capital\u2019s Summertime Ball in London on June 6 before taking the stage for a pair of stadium shows in Tennessee and Pennsylvania on July 9 and 18, respectively, with his pal Thomas Rhett. His North American tour in support of the album will kick off on March 17, 2027 in St. Paul, Minn. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEnd of an Era\u201d is the third single from the upcoming album, following on the heels of the title track and \u201cLittle More Time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch Horan on And the Writer Is<\/em> and watch the lyric video for \u201cEnd of an Era\u201d below.<\/p>\n

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[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/music\/pop\/niall-horan-talks-writing-end-of-an-era-about-liam-payne-1236255015\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/P115UVML-e1772111322805.jpg?w=1024″] Trending on Billboard When Niall Horan was working on songs for his upcoming fourth solo album, Dinner Party (June 5), he said he was \u201cdancing around\u201d the idea of writing a song in honor of his late One Direction bandmate Liam Payne, trying to figure out how to pay tribute to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,226],"class_list":["post-1949705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-billboard-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1949705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1949705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1949705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1949705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}