The fifth track on James Blake’s intensely emotive third studio album. “F.O.R.E.V.E.R.” is a work of melting balladry describing the variable permanence of love in relationships. The heartbreaking piece moves effortlessly through metaphors involving ghosts and mirrors, soaring vocals over a sole melancholy piano.

The use of ‘F.O.R.E.V.E.R.’ rather than simply ‘Forever’ as the title reflects the sentiment of the opening line – ‘don’t use the word “forever”’. Blake has doubts about the permanence of relationships, and has himself stopped using the word.

Blake debuted “f.o.r.e.v.e.r” at Art Basel in December 2014. In an interview with Gilles Peterson on BBC Radio 6 he revealed the motivations behind “f.o.r.e.v.e.r.”

[The track] was written about a conversation that I had with somebody about marriage and about committing to somebody […] marriage was invented at a time where we lived to about 35 and, in modern times, when the average age is 80 or something, it seems a little bit intense to say to somebody that you’ll love them forever, regardless of what happens, because you don’t know what’s going to happen. You might grow apart, all sorts of things, life situations. So that conversation spans this idea of what “forever” means to a relationship and how actually I didn’t see how that could be possible and actually, that it was sort of disingenuous to even make that promise. So this is almost like an “anti-commitment” song. This song puts into words the frustration of this idea.