BACK WHEN YOU WERE MINE Lyrics – The Kid LAROI

The Kid LAROI saves the heaviest hit for last with Back When You Were Mine, the closing track on his upcoming album Before I Forget (Deluxe Version), dropping January 9, 2026, via Columbia Records, and it’s the kind of song that lands like a quiet exhale after everything else has been said.

This one feels like the emotional bookend to the whole project. Over Daniel Aged and Zack Sekoff’s understated production—soft guitar strums, gentle percussion, and plenty of breathing room—LAROI walks through the wreckage of a relationship that’s already gone. The verses lay it bare: the money spent, the time given, the lies defended, even the willingness to die for someone who’s now just a memory.

The chorus keeps circling back to that simple, aching phrase “back when you were mine,” almost like he’s trying to convince himself it was real. The pre-chorus adds the sting—her alone at home now, feeling the cold she never expected, while he admits he never thought he’d be the one to put this pain into a song. It’s raw, reflective, and unflinching, exactly what he promised when he called this his most honest work yet.

The album itself was born out of the months after his July split with Tate McRae, and you can hear that timeline in every line. LAROI scrapped an earlier version of the project, went back to the drawing board, and came up with something stripped down and personal. Before I Forget is built around themes of memory, regret, and growth, and this final track ties it all together—looking back without bitterness, just a clear-eyed acceptance that things change. The deluxe version adds a few more layers, but this song already feels like the natural closer, the moment he lets the listener walk away with him.