Niall Horan releases special song for Liam Payne ahead of album

Niall Horan paid emotional tribute to his friend and One Direction bandmate Liam Payne in a new song, End of an Era, released before the complete album comes out on June 5.

The 32-year-old Irish singer released the track on May 22, which includes emotional lyrics beginning with “We had it, pure magic / Remembering what it was like / Time passes so fast that / I couldn’t tell you goodbye. Feels like letting go of / Things we’re not supposed to / One breath and it’s over / The end of an era.”

The One Direction alum announced the third single’s release on Tuesday, May 19, and noted that he felt like the song, End of an Era, “needed its own space before the album comes out in a few weeks.”

Horan elaborated, “Julian Bunetta, John Ryan and I started the original version of this song years and years ago. We rewrote it about four times without ever feeling it was quite right. As we were working on this album, we revisited it.”

The This Town hitmaker completed the song in the first few months after he learnt about Payne’s death in October 2024, where he passed away after a fall from his hotel in Argentina.