A soulful, seductive, and smoldering mix of R&B heat and indie grit, Medium Build’s “Last Time” finds Nick Carpenter at his most magnetic and suave – pouring his heart into an achingly sentimental, brutally tender meditation on memory, love, and the inescapable inevitability of endings.
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Stream: “Last Time” – Medium Build
Don’t you take for granted what you have until it’s missed…
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Medium Build has always had a way of always taking our breath away, and his latest single is no exception.
Released August 29 via Island Records, “Last Time” is a rich and soulful, smoldering reverie full of glistening, golden melodies, achingly tender lyrics, and pure heat. Nick Carpenter has always blurred lines between raw and refined, confessional and cathartic, but here he unveils a new side of his artistry – sensual and suave, seductive and sultry, yet still undeniably sweet. His new track simmers with slow-burning passion, every beat pulsing like a heartbeat you can’t ignore.
We were smoking in the street
You were finishing your drink
We were waiting for your friends
It hadn’t been romantic in a while
You were kinda playing mean
It was the kind of Friday night
Where all of the drunks are in the street
So this girly wanders up
She was trying to get a laugh
She pretends she had a mistletoe
hanging by her head
You were drunk, but still polite
We didn’t want to kill her vibe
So we pressed our lips together
like we had a thousand times
Carpenter frames the song as an exploration of memory, nostalgia, and the strange clarity of knowing when something may be ending: “I have this friend who is obsessed with superlatives. He is so curious about who’s eaten the most Flamin’ Hot Cheetos or how many people have ever been drunk in the Vatican,” he tells Atwood Magazine.
“But sometimes these absurd queries drift into the nostalgic. When was the last time I slept over at my childhood bestie’s house? Did I know the last thing I said to my grandma before she died? When was the last time I held hands with my first love? We never really clock these moments. They’re always left to the pain of memories.”
“This song is about leaving a moment and knowing it very well might be the last time you talk to, kiss, or hold a person who was a giant part of your life,” he continues. “It’s the odd sobriety you feel when you leave something behind. It’s the yin and yang of need and repulsion. When will I play my last show or eat my last banana? Who knows?”
Carpenter’s candid reflections on life’s fleeting nature and the unavoidable truth of “last times” breathe both a fresh warmth and weight into the song’s chorus – an emotionally charged climax where he proclaims, “It might be the last time that we kissed. You always take for granted what you have until it’s missed,” his singing a hearty, raw, and ragged cry – unrestrained, vulnerable, and unshakably human. Those words hit with devastating clarity as his voice trembles with longing and vulnerability, a bittersweet recognition of how we rarely realize the value of a moment until it’s already gone:
But it might be the last time
that we kissed
You always take for granted
what you have until it’s missed
Don’t you take for granted
what you have until it’s missed
From there, the emotion only swells. Medium Build transforms reflection into revelation, carrying the chorus’ quiet devastation into a verse that brims with volatility and devotion.
The second verse turns visceral and immediate, tumbling through snapshots of chaos and connection – orange wine, bad news, a hole in the wall, whispered confessions of fragility and faithfulness. Carpenter delivers it all in a breathless stream, living inside the mess while memorializing it in real time. By the time he’s “dancing in the park” and pleading for “one more mouth-to-mouth,” his voice carries the weight of desperation and devotion in equal measure: He’s clinging to the fleeting spark even as he’s already inscribing it into memory.
Orange wine, Airbnb
Then we got the news ’bout Eileen
I punched a hole in the wall
You got curled up in a ball
You told your friends, “He’s a loaded gun”
Now you say that I’m the one
Is it romantic that you’re the
only person I never cheated on?
And now we’re dancing in the park
You’re really trying to unwind
It’s been so long since
I’ve seen you have a decent time
Not crashed out on the couch
Not pulling your hair out
Come on, one more mouth-to-mouth
It might be the last time that we kiss
You always take for granted
what you have until it’s missed
Don’t you take for granted
what you have until it’s missed
This might be the last time that we kiss
You always take for granted
what you have until it’s missed
Don’t you take for granted
what you have until it’s missed
Life will has as many beginnings as it will endings: It’s a heavy truth to hold, but “Last Time” makes that inevitable weight – that inescapable ache – feel luminous and everlasting.
Carpenter’s voice rises like smoke, hushed and heated, carrying lines that sear straight through the soul: “It might be the last time that we kiss / you always take for granted what you have until it’s missed,” he sings in the track’s brutally heartrending, breathtakingly beautiful chorus. Blending R&B smoothness with indie grit, he’s crafted a song that glows from the inside out, both intimate and explosive, intoxicating and immersive.
This is Medium Build at his most magnetic – and if it really were the last time, he couldn’t have left us with anything more stunning.
And if it really is the end
I just want you to be happy
And I know the way that sounds
So fucking kill me when you hear this
‘Cause it might be the last time that we talk
It breaks my heart when I think I’m moving on
You taste regret, what you’ve got until it’s gone
And this might be the last time that we kiss
You always take for granted
what you have until it’s missed
Don’t you take for granted
what you have until it’s missed
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:: connect with Medium Build here ::
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Stream: “Last Time” – Medium Build
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© Tyler Krippaehne
© Tyler Krippaehne
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