Horan asked his A&R to send Little a demo of “The Show” and before long they were chatting on the phone. “I’ve always been a huge fan of Joel’s work,” Horan says of the Grammy winner, who has worked with superstars like Lorde and Taylor Swift. Exploring darker terrain was new to the hitmaker and he turned to New Zealand producer Joel Little for guidance. “I guess it is quite contemplative,” he says, “but there’s fun stuff in there too.”Īnd frequently, darkness and light intersect - as it does on new single “Meltdown,” a driving pop-rock song with a radio-ready chorus that also happens to detail Horan’s struggle with anxiety. “Writing a song like that makes you start to think about what else you should be grateful for.” It also encouraged him to be more vulnerable and open up about his fears and anxieties on the rest of the album. “I wanted to say things I hadn’t said before,” Horan says of the song, which recognizes that giddy highs and devastating lows are inevitable side-effects of being human.

With its introspective lyrics and quirky, alt-leaning production, “The Show” would go on to set the tone of the whole project.

Eventually, he sat down at the piano and wrote the title track of his third album. “I had just written a thousand songs, so I didn’t do anything for a lot of the early pandemic,” he remembers. After the sting of his stillborn sophomore project wore off, Horan returned to the studio - somewhat reluctantly.

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