your friendly film person :)

The last time I listened to Lily Allen was a few years ago when I went back to her song “Hard Out Here” because I felt completely outraged and needed to hear the ever-encouraging line “it’s hard out here for a bitch”. She is the OG in female rage pop, but to be honest with you I don’t listen to her enough to consider myself a fan. I simply know of her, and happened on the song “Pussy Palace” off her new album on TikTok. It was shocking enough to make me go listen to the entirety of “West End Girl” in one sitting.

My goodness, it’s storytelling pop perfection.

This isn’t a track-by-track review, it’s more the story and my take on what I enjoy about the album. Lily Allen mentioned in interviews that while it is heavily inspired by her divorce and includes actual texts she exchanged with her ex’s mistress (truly iconic), she did embellish and not everything is fact. I’ll approach my retelling/thoughts as if the West End Girl is fictional — simply because I don’t know her situation or her for that matter.

The story goes…

A successful woman marries a successful man, in wedded bliss they buy a house together in the US. She describes a gratitude that he’s “pushed her forward” to start nesting, but when she gets offered an acting role in London that she’s excited for he seemingly gets bitter. He talks down the thrilling news, implying she’s probably “invited to audition” and misunderstood. She goes ahead (annoyed but undeterred), books the flight and the role. Once she gets to London, he calls asking for them to open their marriage while she’s away.

“Uhm… It makes me sad… I just want you to be happy.”

With a lot of reservations — “this is not a conversation for over the phone” — she agrees… and proceeds to discover how he took advantage of the situation to the extreme, didn’t respect any of the boundaries they set, and makes her feel inferior and like it’s all her fault.

Girl, he hates you.

This narrative nightmare plays out on the backdrop of groovy, theatrical pop tunes. She’s setting a very vibrant scene that feels almost like a coping mechanism — our character is talking about the demise of her marriage like she’s reading a fairy tale, which makes it all the more brutal. Unhinged, even.

It’s worth noting that even though we’re dealing with a character who is married, everybody who’s been through some form of deception/disrespect in a relationship can relate to the insecurity Allen works through in the entire album. Especially in regard to vocalizing it to others. It’s horrible to hear the person you’re in love with doesn’t love you, even if that is the bitter truth. There is a reference in track 6 titled “Relapse” that she’s asked to tell the girls all about love, but after the discovery she makes of his mistress she can’t “keep it together long enough”.

“Pussy Palace” is smack dab in the middle of the tracklist and rightfully so. Her job in London comes to an end, she returns “home”, and finds clues to her husband’s sexcapades. Several receipts from trips and expensive gifts not meant for her… and condoms. Many, many condoms. It’s the breaking point: if you listen closely, during the second bridge Lily Allen lets out a small giggle. She’s seen so much, been made to feel so bad, she can’t help but laugh at her situation. All that time spent wondering why he’s not touching her (“Ruminating”), sleepless over not being good enough (“Sleepwalking”), for a man who had been buying other women expensive gifts and seemingly could’ve been a sex addict.

“What a low blow, oh no.”

By the time we get to this track in the album, our main character has lost all sense of self. She wasn’t good enough, so her husband found what she didn’t have in “Madeline”. It’s heartbreaking but a very real consequence of discovering there wasn’t “only sex”, but rather a standing secondary relationship (even if Madeline herself denies there was ever anything romantic) with another person. Whatever high you were riding on before crumbles together with your self-worth, and while she later on has moments where she tries to appear cool and confident, it’s only at the very last song “Fruityloop” that she absolves herself of the shame and starts to heal.

“My name is Dallas Major”

There may be no music videos yet but there are short-clip visualizers for each track on “West End Girl”. One of my favorites is for the song “Dallas Major”, where Lily Allen is fully asleep at a table in a low-lit restaurant while several men and women appear and interchange across from her. All doing something different: some dancing, some seemingly talking, one guy even undressing. Given that this is a song all about how tedious online dating is, I think it’s hilarious and probably very representative of the experience.

I can’t say for sure, I experimentally made a Tinder for less than a week with an old friend of mine years ago. Never went on a date through it, generally didn’t enjoy it much. Friends have said resulting dates and/or interactions can range from cool to laughably bad (or dangerous if you’re not careful). To be honest with you, I can’t imagine what fresh hell it may be to be “almost nearly forty and just shy of 5 foot 2” looking for fun on Tinder. I can totally see why someone would hate it. Anybody who’s not really sold on the idea of casual sex or can’t even convince themselves to try it will probably relate to the entire, repetitive jig of “Dallas Major”.

And now I’m a West End Girl

“You heard of brat summer, get ready for a West End Girl winter!”

So says the internet. By all lyrical means, I really hope I do not become a West End Girl. It is an amalgamation of everything that could possibly go wrong when putting your trust in another person blindly. It’s also a cautionary tale to tread carefully when setting boundaries beyond what you can handle just to ensure “happiness” for the person you love. Pressure to open a relationship is usually not a sign of a loving, respectful partnership when it is done at “opportune” times. The initial instinct may be “I love him”, but that always needs to be followed up with “is this the relationship I want to have?”.

The entire album is like your musical theatre friend took all the trauma from her relationship and created a one-woman show for the monthly friend catch-up date. By the end of the performance you gawk at her, stunned with a glass of white wine in your hand, not sure if to congratulate her or offer her the rest of the bottle.

Will I listen to the album on repeat for the foreseeable future? Yes.

Do I have a favorite track? Yes, “4chan stan”.

Do I hope you listen to it too? Yes, because I need more people to talk to about it.