Songfacts®:

• Niall Horan had started writing "End Of An Era" with his producers, Julien Bunetta and John Ryan, when he got word that Liam Payne, his bandmate in One Direction, had died on October 16, 2024 after falling from a balcony in Buenos Aires.
  
  "The song has had about three different variations," Horan said on the Off The Record podcast. "That song took a long time to write. We've had three different goes at it. It started as just a song looking back on my past, being happy and nostalgic about it, but also excited about the future, and things like that. And then it became a completely different thing after we lost Liam. And 'End Of An Era' already existed; that little chorus part, 'End of an era,' was already there. And I was just like, I have to write this song about that. And Julian, John, and I wrote it together because we all were all very close with Liam. It was like a therapy session for the three of us. I felt like, you're writing about personal stuff, that's one of the biggest things that's happened in my life, so I'm definitely writing about it. Yeah, it's also a good rock-y vibe that I love. Emotionally, it reflects what I was thinking at the time very well."
• The song closes out Horan's fourth album, Dinner Party, released in June 2026. He credits his co-writer/producers Julien Bunetta and John Ryan for pushing him to be more open in his songs.
  
  "You probably subconsciously hide stuff," he told Off The Record. "You would touch on the point without actually explaining the point. You would get close to it. I feel like I've definitely opened up a little bit more. Allowing myself to do that has probably been a big change. And I feel like I've always been good at this, even when the world of music is changing all the time and different genres are big, and at different points and swings and roundabouts, I feel like I've always stuck to my guns and just did stuff that I like. Whether that's worked at times or not is a different story, and I don't know if it's going to work this time either, in terms of a commercial success or whatever, but I feel like I've always stuck to my guns on things and just made the records I wanted to. I've pushed the boat out a little bit more this time and really did what I wanted to do, which I'm proud of."