Lewis Capaldi has returned with his first new material since 2019 with “Forget Me,” an ode to watching an ex move on and seem like they’re forgetting you.
Given the recent passing of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday, the singer took to social media in reaction to the news writing, “In light of the situation tonight, I don’t think it’s the right time to go overboard on the promotion of my new single, bit it’s still coming out at midnight wherever you are. Speak soon x.”
If anyone could pull off a bouncy breakup tune, it’s Capaldi and while the song doesn’t share the same anguish as his breakout hit “Someone You Loved,” his signature vibrato is still present.
“Cos I’m not ready/To find out you know how to forget me,” he sings over a bright piano line. “I’d rather hear how much you regret me.”
In true Capaldi fashion, he also wrote his own press release around the new single, noting that the single was “a wee bit more upbeat than my previous numbers, mostly because after touring the world, I noticed that my lesser known slower tracks were making some of the crowds look like they were about to fall asleep out of sheer boredom. However, this new one is sad AND fast, much like my love making. Not to worry, I’ve still got plenty of depressing ballads up my sleeve.”
“‘Forget Me’ is a song that’s so dear to my heart, and I definitely feel like it’s my best tune yet,” Capaldi shared in a statement. “It’s about a break-up I went through where after a year, the only real contact I had with my ex was seeing her ‘post-me’ life play out on her Instagram.
“I was at a point where I was feeling pretty miserable, and she seemed like she was moving on and having the best time, thriving, and I hated it. It seemed unfair to me that she appeared happy while I was hurting, and I was fearful she might have forgotten about me completely, so I wrote a song about it.”
The new single was first announced during the closing night of the Scottish pop star’s sold-out, two-night stand at London’s O2 Arena. “Forget Me” marks the start of a new era for the 25-year-old star after he took over the world with his debut album, Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent.
That record has scored the musician over 25 billion combined global streams and spent 77 weeks in the Top 10 of the Official UK Albums Chart – the longest streak of consecutive weeks for an album by a solo artist. It was also the biggest-selling UK album of both 2019 and 2020 and spawned the ubiquitous hit “Someone You Loved,” which stayed in the UK Top 10 for more weeks than any song ever by a British act.
Earlier this summer, Capaldi celebrated the third anniversary of “Someone You Loved” with a Vevo Footnotes video, in which he took fans behind the scenes on its official music video. In July, meanwhile, he headlined Latitude Festival, performing tracks from that first record.
