Lily Allen’s “West End Girl”: A Delightfully Bitter Black Comedy
Design by Addy Russel
By Bennett Himmel
In the age of confessional, wry, witty pop stars, Lily Allen’s absence has been felt. Since 2006, she’s been wowing people with her hilarious yet wise lyricism, reggae and ska inspired grooves, and knack for irony. Her last album, No Shame, was excellent if at times uninspired. Songs like “Trigger Bang,” “Come On Then,” and “Apples” built on her well-established sound with brutally honest songwriting and convincing vocal performances. However, after its release, Lily took a step back. She had a lead role in the West End play 2:22, started a podcast, and married David Harbour of Stranger Things fame. Their life seemed picturesque. Two hot celebs with a five-floor brownstone in New York? TWO Architectural Digest tours? Sign me up! So you can only imagine the shock when their divorce was finalized in February of this year. On West End Girl, her first album in seven years, Lily Allen pulls back the curtain of irony that she’s been hiding behind for years, offering a darkly humorous, barely fictionalized retelling of “what went wrong.”
Over bossa-nova-lite strings and bass, the album opens in media res with its title track. “And now we’re all here / We’ve moved to New York / We found a cute little rental near a sweet little school!” Allen’s lack of attention to rhyme schemes and meter immediately hits you on the first listen. She rhymes words with themselves, ignores the need to rhyme entirely, and stuffs as many syllables as possible into each line. It gives the effect of listening to a musical, and things are about to go to shit. She sings of Harbour’s disapproval of her turn in 2:22, before a one-sided FaceTime call interrupts the song, where we assume the person on the other line is asking for an open marriage. Allen gives an incredibly convincing performance, breaking into tears with a tossed off “I love you, I’ll talk to you later.” It’s unfortunate that this song leads us into what is probably the worst on the record. In the obviously BRAT-inspired “Ruminating,” Allen describes panicking in her room at 4 a.m., thoughts racing over ticking hi hats. “If it has to happen baby do you want to know / I don’t know / I don’t know / I don’t know / I don’t know / I don’t know / I don’t know / BUT WHAT A LINE LINE LINE!” It’s one of the few moments that the lack of window dressing registers as grating.
Much of the online discussion about West End Girl has been about the album’s gently pulsing centerpiece, “Pussy Palace.” The song describes Allen in a frenzy upon discovering that Harbour’s apartment in the West Village (though gorgeous) is not a “dojo” for introspection, but rather a “pussy palace,” a disgusting, cum-stained bachelor pad. “Duane Reade bag with the handles tied / Sex toys, butt plugs, lube inside,” she lilts. The song is deceptively catchy, and fucking brutal. You almost feel sorry for Harbour. Almost.
But West End Girl’s best moment is the double-punch of “Tennis” and “Madeline.” “Tennis” is a piano-led waltz in which Lily Allen realizes that her husband’s extramarital affairs go beyond the sexual; he’s playing fucking tennis with them. “You won’t play with meeeee…” she sighs, before looking into the non-existent camera and deadpanning: “And who’s Madeline?” And then boom. “Madeline” opens with standoff guitars and a breathless monologue from Allen: “I can’t trust anything that comes out of your mouth / I’m not convinced that he hasn’t fucked you in our house.” It’s gutting. Then comes the kicker: Allen, doing her best valley girl voice, rips the girl to shreds. “Lies are not something that I want to get caught up in / You can reach out to me any time, by the way / If you need any more details or you just need to vent or anything / Love and light, Madeline.” It is mean, bitter, and nothing if not real as fuck.
West End Girl is far from a perfect album. The woozy, theatrical atmosphere of the album wears off after the reggae-influenced “Nonmonogamummy,” and the final leg feels a bit of a slog. As a narrative work, West End Girl is brilliant. It’s biting; incredibly bleak, and incredibly funny. But as a collection of songs to listen to, it can feel depressing, repetitive, and genuinely quite stressful. What it does do, is make you feel like Lily Allen never left. I’m thrilled that this record is making people realize Allen’s brilliance, but I’m not sure it’s the best vessel.