Slow Hands (Niall Horan song)

Background and composition

Horan said in an interview that after listening to material recorded for his debut album, he wanted to add "a bit more grit, funk and heavier bass." He was listening to late 1970s and early 1980s music at the time, and cited the solo work of Don Henley as an influence. Horan described the track as "a little bit cheeky with the lyric" and noted that the song's setting is a bar, where stereotypical roles are reversed: the first line has the girl saying "we should take this back to my place." "Slow Hands" is a bass-heavy funk-pop, pop and folk-pop song with Horan singing in a lower register. It is written in the key of C major at a tempo of 88 beats per minute.

Critical reception

Taylor Weatherby of Billboard noted the song's "funkier guitar vibe" compared to Horan's previous single "This Town" and called it a "subtly-sexy song" showing an "edgier side of Niall." Colin Stutz of the same publication wrote that the combination of a thumping beat and Horan's raspy vocals makes the song "hardly even sound like the same guy who sang ["This Town"]" and indicated Horan would not stick to a sweet singer-songwriter sound on his solo debut.

Rolling Stone's Althea Legaspi observed that Horan "goes for a more muted sound" with a stomp-and-clap beat and muted guitar, allowing his lower register to showcase a more seductive side. In The Irish Times, Jennifer Gannon described it as a step in a "more Sheeran-style, crowd-pleasing direction" and a "gentle, foot-stomper." Billboard's critics ranked it second on "Every One Direction Solo Single, Ranked" in May 2017, highlighting the way Horan's vocal on the first verse is "ever so discretely chopped on the recording to a clipped staccato."

Chart performance

"Slow Hands" landed in the top ten on charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the UK. As a solo artist, it marked Horan's second top 20 hit on the US Billboard Hot 100, climbing to number 11 and outperforming his earlier single "This Town." The track earned a Platinum certification in the United States on September 15, 2017, for over a million units in sales and streaming equivalents. It also topped the Mainstream Top 40 chart on October 7, 2017, and had sold one million copies in the US by December of that year.

Live performances

Niall Horan brought "Slow Hands" to several TV shows and concerts. He played it on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. On May 29, 2017, he performed the song alongside "This Town" and introduced "On the Loose" on The Today Show.

He sang it at the One Love Manchester benefit concert on June 4, 2017, and the next day on BBC One's The One Show. The song was also part of his set at the Capital FM Summertime Ball 2017. On June 22, 2018, Horan joined Taylor Swift as a surprise guest at the first London show of her Reputation Stadium Tour to perform it together.