Louis Tomlinson delivered a deeply personal new song on Thursday.
On “Two Of Us,” Tomlinson sings about losing his mother Johannah to leukemia in 2016. “You’ll never know how much I miss you / the day that they took you / I wish it was me instead.
“I will be the best of me / Always keep you next to me / I’ll be living one life for the two of us.”
The 27-year-old former One Direction star described the track as something he “absolutely needed to write.”
Tomlinson explained: “People say writing is a part of therapy and in a way, I feel like I’d been avoiding writing this song because I knew I only had one chance to get it right. I don’t mean to be too soppy about it, but if ‘Two of Us’ can help just one other person who's going through the tough time that I went through, then that would make me really happy.”
The single follows his Steve Aoki collaboration, “Just Hold On” and his Bebe Rexha duet “Back to You.”
Tomlinson is the only ex-1D member to not have released a solo album – something he hopes will change this year.
“I won't feel content until I've got the album out, because it's been a long time coming now,” he said, in a release. “I’ve written a lot of songs – too many for an album. But the most important thing is for the album to feel like it makes sense when you play it from start to finish.
“It's going to be an album that really builds a narrative – an autobiographical one.”
Listen to "Two Of Us" below: