On the title track of West End Girl, Lily Allen paints an ostensibly idyllic picture of married life. Over bouncy bossa nova, a rose-tinted recollection of a fresh start in a big city plays out. While working with a high-profile interior designer on their brownstone townhouse apartment — in a neighbourhood with a good school, of course — Lily receives news of an exciting professional opportunity abroad. Cracks, however, start to emerge: a strange, eyebrow-raising remark about that job offer causes feelings of unease and awkwardness to descend, puncturing this mirage of domestic bliss.
Since its release in late October, West End Girl has been the subject of countless headlines over the way it brutally autopsies Lily’s marriage to Stranger Things actor David Harbour in a format mirroring a West End musical. Listening to such a cleverly constructed concept record that guides the listener through pain, paranoia and even a Pussy Palace, it’s astonishing to learn that the entire project was written and recorded in just 16 days.
A regular subject of discussion between Lily and her co-producer Blue May, the follow-up to 2018’s No Shame only began in earnest at the end of 2024. This time, Lily asked Blue about the prospect of working with her on new music in the immediate aftermath of her marriage to David falling apart. Given the sensitivity of the topic, Blue assembled a team of trusted songwriters and producers in Los Angeles. The intention, Blue tells M, was to make Lily ‘feel comfortable by the notion that she could still make some of her best work and step back into mainstream culture in a musical way’.
‘Blue understood the feeling of community that was necessary to build this record,’ continues songwriter Violet Skies, who was among the collaborators to be briefed on Lily’s personal life ahead of recording. ‘Usually, I would find that so many people in the room would be too much or too intimidating. But I must emphasise that this album is unusual, because the way we all got on musically was unusual. Everybody came in with a compassionate understanding of what they needed to do.’
'We wanted [the album] to feel like a return to form.’ - Oscar Scheller
Lily came to that first session with 18 song titles and a clear narrative arc in mind, referencing The Streets’ seminal A Grand Don’t Come For Free as inspiration for the record’s framework. ‘That full stop on the end of that period of her life was immediately followed by us being in the studio,’ Blue explains. ‘The beginning was the beginning, and the end was three days ago.’
Sonically, Blue wanted to capture the essence of Lily’s brilliance — namely the sharp wit that catapulted her to household-name status upon the 2006 release of her debut album Alright, Still. To do so, he sought to harness the juxtaposition that runs through so many of Lily’s cult-favourite tracks.
‘The music she’s famous for is generally quite bright and punchy,’ he says. ‘There’s a lightness to it that’s pretty much always balanced by her incredible sharpness of tongue: [equal parts] brutal, vulnerable and self-deprecating.’
West End Girl draws from an eclectic mix of genres, mirroring how Lily’s upbringing in London shaped her earliest music. ‘You’re surrounded by dancehall, garage, indie rock,’ says Oscar Scheller, a fellow London songwriter who worked on the album. ‘You’re going to record shops and you’re hearing all these different sounds. We wanted to tap into that and have it feel like a return to form, in a way that is also very elevated.’
That feeling of elevation comes through in flourishes across the album. The use of live instrumentation — in particular the string arrangements — give West End Girl a theatrical flair without compromising on the angst and humour that is so integral to Lily’s songwriting.
‘When you’ve got lyrics that are so dense in content, even though they’re so conversational, you don’t then want it to be too dense melodically,’ Violet explains to M. ‘Lily has formed a classic sound. Her melodies are inherently catchy and simple, but they serve as this really clean base to showcase her important — and sometimes devastatingly sad, or devastatingly funny — lyrics.’
As the concept was determined prior to the songwriting sessions, Lily’s co-writers were able to carve out a sound for each song by dissecting its lyrical content beforehand. Madeline, for instance, is a ‘spaghetti Western showdown between two people’, as Violet puts it — fittingly so, given that it features both a spoken-word monologue and gun sound effects. Ruminating, meanwhile, dwells on being trapped in a cycle of overthinking, mirrored by claustrophobic, chaotic chords and footwork drums. ‘It’s like you’re dancing through the pain,’ Oscar offers.
This logic also results in West End Girl’s most harrowing moments becoming its most danceable. Relapse, an intrinsically British two-step record, sees Lily struggle to maintain a five-year streak of sobriety while dealing with immense stress and heartache.
‘Lily’s such an incredible wordsmith; that’s always been her sharpest tool as an artist,’ Oscar says. ‘In her own life, the rug was pulled from under her feet. In a way, it all just poured into the art.’
This juxtaposition between sunnier sounds and this devastating lyricism is maintained until the final two tracks — the soft, acoustic guitar-led Let You W/In, (‘a really triumphant ode to the power of songwriting,’ Violet says) and the trip-hop-imbued Fruityloop. Oscar describes the latter as a ‘radical acceptance’ and ‘surrender’ to the pain that consumes the album: ‘That feeling is reflected in how spacious and ethereal the music is.’
‘In the end, we as writers had to be as brave as Lily was being. It was truly an education in songwriting.’ - Violet Skies
In the aftermath of West End Girl’s release, the lyrical content predictably became tabloid fodder. While this particular reaction was entirely predicted by those who worked on the record, the overwhelmingly positive response to the album’s vulnerability was a surprise — particularly in an era where albums can struggle to make a cultural impact.
‘We weren’t thinking, “Oh yeah, people are going to love this”. We were thinking, “This is crazy. Should we say this?”’ Violet remembers. ‘In the end, we as writers had to be as brave as Lily was being. It was truly an education in songwriting.’
Violet also points out that an integral aspect behind West End Girl’s brilliance — outside of Lily’s genius, a pop culture landscape primed for her return and even the collaborative nature of recording sessions — was how the album afforded equity for all the songwriters and producers involved.
‘There was full transparency about how everyone was getting paid and what they were getting paid, both on a split side and on the master fee side,’ she explains. ‘That was totally spearheaded by Blue and Lily, and that’s really, really important.’
Moving forward, Lily’s co-writers hope the overwhelming success of the record will help to instigate change in the music industry, leaving a positive impact that will outlast the pain that served as its muse.
‘Labels, artists, managers or teams that say it’s not possible for songwriters to be rewarded on the master side, or that they can’t receive equal splits or fair compensation for their work, are lying, because it is possible,’ Violet says. ‘I do believe that if you want an album to do well, pay the people who made it.’
Lily Allen's West End Girl is out now, and you can see her upcoming tour dates here. Main image credit: Charlie Denis.
This article is taken from the latest issue of M Magazine, which you can read in full here.
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