BLAME MONSTER: WHO DARES TO TAKE DAVID HARBOUR'S SIDE AS LILY STRIKES AGAIN?

Lily Allen is a masterful storyteller who takes no prisoners. But let's read between the lines on new album West End Girl.

Exciting, hilarious, and deeply moving… Lily Allen’s surprise new album West End Girl is bursting with vivid ideas, microscopic imagery and corkscrew earworms. Like a fight in a club, we can’t look away, there’s something so grubby and bleak about the situations that she’s describing, and yet through the darkness Lily rises, defeating all with her lyrical pen, blinding dissenters in blueberry vape plumes.

West End Girl has completely interrupted my week, I’ve listened maybe 25 times and canceled my plans to go to a gay sauna last night full of ecstatic football lads in Newcastle - does praise come any higher?

It’s great to have Lily back. Much has changed in music since she ducked out, the honest gritty girly pop that she helped pave a way for now reigns supreme across the charts and she fits perfectly into Charli XCX’s Brat-pack as a sort of troubled aunt. “Charli babe, you report back from the afters, I’m going to shake things up at this kitchen island. Where am I? Just in my FIVE STORY house. Yeah, I hate it here”

It’s lovely to see these younger stars like Olivia Rodrigo and Jade Thirlwall paying their dues, sharing Lily’s new album onto their Instagram stories too.

West End Girl documents Lily Allen’s split from American actor David Harbour while bravely taking on one of the biggest questions of our day: So-called Polyamory. Open relationships, non-monogamy, what is the cost of these newly opened doors? How do we build something to last when there’s a never ending conveyor belt of new lovers? Can men pursue what they want, think with their penis, and constantly answer to nature’s call? Or is their job to cuddle tired mothers, compliment puff pastry and collect ‘Good Husband’ stamps in a loyalty book? Are relationships all about honesty? When for centuries married couples kept themselves to themselves in kitchen/shed bliss?

Is a rich and varied sex life worth the instability that comes with it? George Michael seemed to have the right idea. An anonymous escort once a day for an hour at his house in Hampstead, and then a “life partner” running around his roof, off his tits on G, screaming at the neighbours.

Paid-for sex is another taboo that Lily drops into the chat. When most can’t afford to heat their houses, men with money prefer to order sex in. Cheap air travel has made it so easy. My friend is a sex worker in Sydney and she is regularly flown out by business men to watch telly in hotels and get bummed between meetings. She’s making a fortune. Even Troye Sivan used his guest rap on Charli’s “Talk Talk” remix to lay out some sort of shady borderline gay human trafficking scheme: “So here’s the plan … I’m going to fly you out to Amsterdam .. and then you’re gonna spank me in time to my average music!” What a visionary.

Lily can’t help but flex while worrying. Is the five story house a little excessive? She wants our sympathy for the anxiety that comes with her husband having several homes, one just for Ann Summers garters, another for inflatables. Lily hopes that we - the all important streamer - agree that David is being a bad man. He didn’t pay for sex, as arranged, he’s not cheating with strangers, as arranged. What next? does he forget to tip the douching assistant? Was there no birthday cake for Svetlana the Ukrainian gimp again? Did the sprinklers come on during Country Garden role-play hour?

The escapist wealth fantasy is a core part of Lily Allen, she wears her white privilege well, like Kirsty Allsopp in an Adidas tracksuit, we eat up all the expensive lady stuff that she says while hoping there’s enough on our Monzo to buy a tuna melt later.

West End Girl is a mesmerisingly cautionary tale. This is what happens when you don’t follow Dua Lipa’s New Rules, when you do pick up the phone, and start scaling a ziggurat of “arrangements” made with Mr Big On Netflix. This is what happens when you don’t do your homework before booking a Vegas wedding.

Lily Allen is no wallflower. She is an ambitious, curious artist, often with men on the brain it seems, and she behaves like an irresponsible male rock star herself, which we absolutely applaud, she is always chasing something different, something more and breaking boundaries. She is always running away, she is always running towards. And then it goes wrong. And she becomes “poor me” Lily, sitting in a Marc Jacobs cardigan, dunking chocolate digestives with her best friend Miquita Olivier talking about what bastards men are on their podcast.

Miquita is the unsung hero of all of these Lily sagas by the way. Lily has the gentle audacity to sing on her album “And now I’m all alone in London”, Miquita must be listening like “Er baby, the lasagna was in the oven in Primrose Hill, where were YOU? Have you heard of this new thing called Uber Lily? It’s an absolute game changer! Takes you to any dojo in ten minutes”

But I think Lily was chasing goals. Lily is the black widow of pop, whipping out a foot of web each time her man looks away. You can mess her around but eventually you will collapse across the altar of her next record. We are saying that the album is about the marriage but I’d be tempted to suggest it’s maybe the other way around. With an artist as great as Lily - the marriage was all about feeding the album! Even if she can’t admit that to herself. Art comes first, it outlives you. A wedding is just confetti for Lily’s songwriting canon. She’s like Runaway Bride, that’s why she’s wearing the dress with the trainers, so that she can sprint to the recording studio after she slays a dude and finds a new line… “Wait up guys! Don’t close Garageband yet! I’ve got a new one! So many Trojans you’re so fucking broken!!!!”

As a fellow addict in recovery myself, I wish her album wasn’t quite so targeted at Harbour and didn’t flaunt quite so many double standards. If he has a problem he needs help and support too, not international mockery so that you can sell out the Roundhouse.

My first sympathy for David Harbour comes when I realise he probably would have liked the old version of Lily, but suddenly she wants a fairytale happy ending, she’s done all the shagging rappers and crushing up, she wants to collect Emma Bridgewater plates now. Whereas David is feeling his oats (Google David Harbour young - that boy was not getting asked out much) and he has lots of money, and a beard and shoulders, and suddenly a massive hit show that he can use as pussy leverage. Lily used her fame to get laid all the time. She sings on Triggerbang “When I was young I was blameless, playing with rudeboys and trainers, anything went - I was famous, I would wake up next to strangers”

David Harbour is still in this phase, and he also wanted a trophy wife. And for some reason - ambition or money or low self-esteem probably - Lily chose to not see that. We celebrate Lily’s slutty cheating years because she is cool and funny. But because David is losing his hair, and in his fifties, and his Instagram captions are a bit cheesy… Kill the beast!

Life gives us all of the right notes in the wrong order, and sometimes instead of getting angry at each other we should just accept that the world that we live in, the impulses we have, the universe’s algorithm, it is all stacked against us.

That’s why I think this album should have finished with a light note, like a grime cover of “Let It Go” sang by Kathy Birke perhaps, with Camilla Parker Bowles on the guest rap "Sup bitches, it’s Camilla-niaire!”

SO LET’S TALK ABOUT WEST END GIRL

I do genuinely love West End Girl. I wouldn’t say it’s a masterpiece like Gwyneth Paltrow just did, but perhaps I’ve overplayed it already. It plays out like a subverted romcom slash psycho-sexual thriller that follows Lily as she tip toes along a crumb trail of condoms and ill-sent texts, through secret shag pads and lube-smeared “pussy palaces” (not a Hello Kitty shrine apparently) Talking of which, Lily loves a bit of Urban Dictionary doesn’t she. A first listen to a Lily Allen album requires at least ten “Pause and Google” moments, she’s irrepressibly down with the kids. I reckon before writing a new song she goes out to Camden with a sandwich bag of fivers and starts poking kids at bus stops - “OI! Commoner! What’s the latest slang? TELL ME or I’ll ridicule you in a gentle dubstep track that Alexa Chung will re-post!”

In just 44 minutes we get the supercut of the several years that she spent with Mr. Stranger Things. Surrounded by live strings and an armada of synths, Lily has wide-ranging musical artillery at her disposal. We have Allbert Hammond from The Strokes on bass, there’s Lana Del Rey’s keyboardist Mikey Hart in the room, as well as Sabrina Carpenter songwriter Leroy “Big Taste” Clampitt. If you think Lily Allen is singing at you alone from the back of a Gail’s Bakery, crying into an oat latte, think again - she has crewed up for her big Lemonade moment.

West End Girl is so salty the cover art might as well be a watercolour of David Harbour’s ball sack covered in Union Jack darts, but instead we have Spanish empirical portraiture of Lily as if to say this isn’t just a divorce, this is a medieval international diplomatic crisis. Borrowing from the musical subcultures that she knows so well, Lily bolsters herself with giant puff sleeves, but does it with a Kensington Palace twist just in case you forget that she was privately educated at Bedales.

There’s so much to love about West End Girl. It’s not just Lily’s marriage in the mixing bowl, we also see elements of her forays into acting, there’s a certain theatricality on display, with Tarantino-esque sound effects, devastating Zoom calls, gunfire, and walk-on parts, including of course the album’s iconic villain - Madelin! (Becky With The Good Hair … sashay away)

LET’S GO THROUGH WEST END GIRL TRACK BY TRACK

We start off with two very different songs. Firstly the title track, West End Girl, which has a cinematic musical theatre feel as Lily quickly sets the scene. The one-sided phone call section reminded me of Alicia Key’s “extra cream” interlude in “You Don’t Know My Name’.

Then comes “Ruminating”, a magnificent track that smacks of hard-knocks Lily, the other Lily, her smoking area spirit animal who is both fragile and spikey, working things out at the back of a nightbus, smacking her fist against hotel mirrors. The intense cyclical feel of Ruminating has a pinch of Charli XCX”s “Constant Repeat” but with a darker undercarriage. The sparse piano chords recall Sky Ferreira’s “Everything Is Embarrassing”. It’s my favourite track on the album and insanely catchy. I love it when the autotune almost evolves into Catherine Tate’s Lauren. “Ruminating!-Ruminating!-face?-bovvered?-Ruminating!”

Tennis and Madeline are wonderful storytelling tracks, they have the freshness and vivacity of early Kanye West. When it comes to comedy Lily gets the balance just write, there’s Madelin’s toxic positivity, and then there’s Lily’s wailing backing vocals that obliterate half of what Madelin says, and then there’s Lily’s barrage of angry rap bars that scold Madelin for answering the question that Lily just asked her. It’s just marvellous to behold.

The track “Tennis” is about a series of back and forth texts. I didn’t know this at first and thought that she meant actual tennis. I’m so British, I was nodding along profusely like “He’s playing tennis with Madelin? The bastard! Butt plugs in the dungeon - we’re only human. But Wimbledon tickets? Jog on mate!!”

“Relapse” is the album’s hidden gem. As an addict in recovery myself, it feels very real and authentic when Lily sings about addiction. This is the “help me” moment where she wants everyone to stop their own lives and comfort her because of decisions she has made. It’s a feeling I know well. Addiction is a brainwave-eating disease. Lily understands, in particular I think, middle class addiction. The abandonment issues, poor communication channels with families, the expectation to achieve placed onto one’s shoulders at a young age, the certain social performance that is constantly required, the misplaced silver spoon jealousy aimed at people who were raised a certain way. I really love this song “Relapse”. “No notes” as the munchkins type these days. Actually one note - the autotune gets a bit too krazy towards the end. I’m sure the live show version will be spot on.

I actually listened to this album for the first time while sitting on a North Sea defence wall near Newcastle watching some sea lions flip around, wind turbines appearing and disappearing again into walls of moving mist, it was beautiful.

Then comes the big reveal… “Pussy Palace”. As the song approaches it feels sonically like turning a corner in Tate Modern and gasping as you see this terrifying painting floating towards you…. The truth! “Pussy Palace” is bombastically catchy with its jaunty chorus and whirling dreamlike synths. It has a gloopy slow motion to it, almost like when you start clutching your face and screaming “Nooooooo”. It’s genius really. Lily straps you into the song like a slow moving ghost-train and then starts elbowing you with her almost robotic Cockney music hall chorus. Think “Old Bamboo” from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang meets M.I.A. “Paper Planes” or “Freedun”

Lyrically “Pussy Palace” centres itself on a triptych of bizarre motifs - “pussy palace” - “dojo”, and “sex addict”. There’s something so cunningly crafted about Lily’s major attack on David Harbour framed as an innocent enquiry too. “So am I looking at a sex addict?” she asks, like “Are we David?” .. “Is that what we’re looking at?” … “I’m not saying you are… I’m just asking my dear” You can almost see Lily’s lawyer smiling with satisfaction in the background.

Again though, it’s a bit playground of Lily. Har har - you’re a sex addict! Right … And who fucked half of Oasis in an Easyjet toilet?

“Beg For You” is a standout later track with its great tribal calls, and then there are some slower songs where Lily tries to take back half of what she’s said, while also casually putting a few new insults onto the table.

Besides roasting David Harbour, I wonder if something greater is going on here. This 14-track epic is also a hall of mirrors, each twist is teaching Lily something about herself and about her past. She knows that the pendulum must swing back. Has Lily finally met her match? This time it’s her turn to be the poorer one in the relationship, the least famous. God is showing her what it felt like to be Ed from Chemical Brothers.

For someone in recovery Lily Allen will know that forgiveness and taking responsibility are the core ways to move on. But the stakes are high here, especially when you’re a mother, with a father on the other side of the Atlantic gaping in disbelief. If David Harbour is a manipulative, lying, sex addict, then why did Lily make the incredible mistake of marrying him after knowing him for only one year, and then moving her two daughters into a house with him? She needs to believe that the signs weren’t there at the start for her own guilt I suspect. I wonder if she was prepared to un-see several red flags because she liked the look of the perks. She was launching an acting career, and she was running low on funds. He is the star of the biggest show on Netflix, and absolutely rolling in it. This was a way to break America, start afresh, be “the cat who got the cream” as she puts it. Is he a bit kinky? Okay let’s ham up the kinky side for a bit and get this over the line.

It’s interesting to observe how Lily is sex positive, until she wants to pointscore and then a beaky strand of conservatism comes out. Is it really that bad for someone to have sex toys and lube? In a bag - with the handles tied… Is that shady, or just practical? Does it not make perfect sense to keep sex paraphernalia in the other place, now that your main house has someone else’s two daughters from a previous marriage in it. I myself have a Reebok bag containing harnesses, dildos, puppy masks and leads in a storage unit in Clapton. I’m not ashamed of that.If you marry a man in his forties, he is going to have a past and possessions, and keep his crappier stuff somewhere else if he can.

In some respects David Harbour was a good match. A tall guy with a butt plug and a couple of kinks. She was selling photos of her feet on sex sites, she was sleeping around with a string of Grime artists. She wrote candidly in her brilliant book My Thoughts Exactly about abandoning her kids for weeks, ignoring their calls, and sleeping with female escorts in Los Angeles because she was “mad and high”. Perhaps David Harbour did his research and came away, understandably, thinking “Ooh, she’s kinda perfect for me. A British celebrity wife with a sense of humour, who likes to experiment in the bedroom and is into chicks? Sign me up!”. In the past, Lily Allen has shagged all sorts of married people, as well as single men while married herself. But when Lily does it - it’s sex positive and feminist.

When she accuses David Harbour of saying that she’ll have to audition for 2:22 A Ghost Story, instead of outright congratulating her on winning the part, we can also play David’s Advocate with this … He is an actor by trade, committed to his craft, for decades. Maybe it just struck him as odd, to hear how in Britain, a random singer is just given a lead. London’s West End is being plagued by celebrity casting and it’s kinda lame? There’s a little too much of it. He was possibly also thinking “Oh no … not another fucking actor in the house, walking around all night with a script”. He married a pop star didn’t he? As Lisa Kudrow’s character Valerie Cherish would say - Note to self, after a long day at work, I don’t wanna see that!

Lily Allen is a masterful storyteller, cutting her way through 21st century clutter and subjects like a jungle explorer with a machete. Lily’s sharp observational eye works in partnership with a jet-black wit, a good ear for a beat, and let it never be forgotten - a truly outstanding singing voice that never fails to find the listener and hold their hand. She is also a hallmark of British values and humour, and one of our century’s most interesting and iconic women. West End Girl is a fantastic album with some beautiful songs and a lot of fun to be had. I just hope that it doesn’t do too much damage to anyone who clearly needs to seek help.

All that West End Girl is missing, in my opinion, is one big radio song for Joe Bloggs and his wife to sing down the pub. Lily has neglected that major portion of her fanbase. Also, the sound engineering is a teeny bit crunchy on my Bose headphones (whereas Charli XCX sounds crystal clear). Oh, and a talking part from best friend Miquita Oliver would have been good:

“Come on Lily. Stop rifling through his draws now, we’re going to miss Hollyoaks, it’s just more cock rings in there, you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all … Ew, what’s that??”

Stream West End Girl on all platforms now, and get ready to listen several times!

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