"Something that we all felt like we had to do for ourselves, for anyone who’s lost anyone, for the fans, for anyone that knew Liam," the musician told Rolling Stone about the Dinner Party single

Niall Horan holds onto the good times with a tight grip on his new single, “End of an Era.” The musician initially wrote the record with the intention of “looking back on the past with nostalgia, being happy with what you had, excited for what’s going to happen,” he recently told Rolling Stone, but returned to it with a new perspective following the death of his One Direction bandmate Liam Payne.

In the first verse, Horan sings, “Time passes so fast that I couldn’t tell you goodbye.” He uses the song as a way to say what he couldn’t before. “Careless times, yeah, we sure had some/Naive eyes, yeah, we sure looked young/Tears fall down like the future comes/Slowly, and then all at once,” he sings. “Feels like letting go of/Things we’re not supposed to/One breath and it’s over/The end of an era.”

Horan wrote “End of an Era” alongside songwriters John Ryan and Julian Bunetta, who were staple collaborators across One Direction’s last three albums. “John and Julian lived next door to Liam for a long time, and we all grew up together,” Horan said. “For the three of us, it was actually quite a crazy experience to have to write a song like that, because you don’t ever expect to … Just a very weird experience for us all, but something that we all felt like we had to do for ourselves, for anyone who’s lost anyone, for the fans, for anyone that knew Liam. It felt like the right thing to do and something that we wanted to do — just terrible that we had to.”

“End of an Era” will appear on Horan’s upcoming album, Dinner Party, out June 5, but the musician wanted to share the song in advance of the album to give it some breathing room. “Some songs take a minute to get to what you’re actually trying to say. This one was one of those. I hope it means as much to you as it does to me,” Horan wrote on social media ahead of the release. “I felt it needed its own space before the album comes out in a few weeks, so here you go.”

Fans might be surprised to hear the celebratory feel of the song, given the context around it. Payne died in October 2024 at the age of 31 following a fall from his hotel balcony. One Direction fans grieved the loss, as did the late singer’s peers in the industry. For Horan, looking back on the years they spent in the band together, the nostalgia and reflection reminded him of how good they had it. “At the end of the day, all of my memories are happy,” he told Rolling Stone. “We were talking about it when we were writing it. All of our memories are traveling the world, messing around, having fun, and being teenagers. I don’t have negative memories.”

Horan added, “It felt liberating to write about. I think that comes across in the song. The first verse is quite sad, but then it’s like, “Remember all the good times we had.” It’s got a bit of both in it. I love how it starts off as one type of song and then it turns into a different type of song. It also reminds me of some of the 1D stuff.”

“End of an Era” follows the release of “Dinner Party” and “Little More Time.”