Niall Horan, the blue-eyed, blonde-haired Irish darling of One Direction fans, has just released his first post-boyband solo single. After Zayn’s album, most people thought Harry would be the next to release music – especially as Niall has seemingly been playing golf full-time since the split. But Horan has surprised everyone by releasing “This Town” today.
The song itself is not so surprising. It sounds a lot like an acoustic One Direction ballad – a mix of “Little Things”, “Night Changes” and “I Want To Write You a Song”. Lyrically, it ticks a lot of 1D boxes, too: references to the better times of childhood, someone walking into the room and giving the narrator chills, “who cares who’s watching?”, her perfume lingering after she’s left, homecoming.
The Evening Standard reports that the new song was co-written by Horan, alongside Jamie Scott, Mike Needle and Daniel Bryer, and the image they are pushing is definitely of an “authentic” singer-songwriter – from the scribbled lyrics in the single’s artwork to the self-professed one-take video that accompanies it.
It might not be anything revolutionary, but BBC Radio One has a real thing for white men singing longingly about their childhood memories at the moment (CR: Lukas Graham’s “7 Years” and Twenty-One Pilots’ “Stressed Out”), so it might do well in the UK charts. Ádh mór ort, Niall!
Related
Content from our partners
