Sarah Harte: Lily Allen's album is resonating with women for a reason

The all-too-common woman's experience of turning yourself inside out to make a failing relationship work strikes a chord with female listeners, whatever age

Lily Allen (left) had an open marriage with her former husband, American actor David Harbour (right).

It’s been officially hailed as ‘West End Girl Winter’ on Twitter. The explosively joyous reaction to Lily Allen’s new album, West End Girl, reminds me of the kind of energy that surrounded Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill. 

I remember a friend coming around in 1995 with a CD and playing it for us. Men told us to turn it down at parties and in the car as we sang our hearts out. There was something about Morissette’s raw pain and refusal to lie down that rattled the old bars of the patriarchal cage.

Confessional female singer-songwriters Morrissette and Allen have different musical styles, with obvious connective tissue. Domestic angst in the shape of unfaithful partners, all of which holds emotive power for women. Morrissette hints at it, whereas, in a more confessional age, Allen spells it out in what amounts to a musical autobiography.

Some have described Allen’s fifth album as a masterpiece. Any woman I have talked to in their mid-40s loves it. In the other corner are some critics who say it’s overhyped, with the Financial Times giving it an undeserved, measly two stars. 

What we like musically is highly subjective. But when Lily Allen speaks about her pain, which she does in this album, for some, she will come low down in the hierarchy of ideal female victims.

She likes sex. She’s had lots of it, including on an aeroplane with another woman’s husband, a famous rockstar, which she swaggered about in her autobiography, which must have been hurtful to his ex-wife. She claimed that she didn’t know he was married. She has casually admitted to having several abortions, which will appal many people.

Like most human beings, she is full of contradictions. The product of a damaged childhood, she was determined to raise her children differently and stepped back from her career. She was famous in her early 20s, rarely a recipe for stability. Add to that parents who she has described as 'quite absent' when she was growing up, and you’ll have ups and downs.

While I greatly admire Allen’s pithy, witty lyrics, I’m not going to be listening to it on repeat as I once did with Jagged Little Pill, but her album is resonating with women for a reason.

After a failed marriage, Allen has ridden into town again on her charger, taking no prisoners. Taking control of your own life and not giving a hoot is a modern feminist message.

Except Allen does care, which makes her message more interesting than the ladette schtick peddled to us in the nineties — a woman who, ideally, only cared about outdrinking the lads and sleeping around. She makes this clear in nonmonogamummy.

I've been trying to be open / I just want to meet your needs / And for some reason I revert to people-pleasing / I'll be your nonmonogamummy / I'm just trying to be open 

For those not au fait, she had an open marriage with her former husband, American actor David Harbour, known for the Netflix series Stranger Things.

It’s clear to me that the all-too-common female experience of turning yourself inside out to make a failing relationship work strikes a chord with female listeners, whatever age.

On that note, one positive from Allen’s dissection of her open marriage is that younger women might think twice before entering non-traditional sexual arrangements that, deep down, they are unhappy with.

It’s not simply Allen’s open marriage that ended badly. I’ve known three open marriages instigated by middle-class men who wanted to sleep around and cloaked it in some pseudo-philosophy. The wives went unhappily along with it. 

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All three couples had young children. All three marriages imploded. I remember holding the hand of a woman at a party as she sobbed like her heart would break. On the dance floor, literally in front of our eyes, her husband got off with somebody (not sure what it’s called now). 

A clever, educated man, he managed to come up with some codswallop about freedom, nature, and exploration. Their small child was at home. He was openly being a licentious, selfish prick. She was much younger, but she was feisty, and after much pain, she reluctantly but rightfully moved on.

I vaguely knew his second wife, and she seemed to consider him as wonderful as he did. He was voluble enough on the subject of his genius; we didn’t need his cheerleader-in-chief to give us a rundown on his immense talent.

One observation is that in several of the most booming marriages I know, the wife defers and peppers her conversation with her husband’s name, as if he were Moses handing down the tablets. These women’s careers sometimes play second fiddle or are dependent on his, and they’re always warming his slippers at home. Each to their own, I guess.

However, I have speculated with other separated women (with great hilarity) that maybe that’s where we went wrong. We ran out of steam for looking rapturous and migrated into the ‘you’re lucky I’m still here, buddy’ phase before deciding, I’m off, because my scream will break windows if I have to listen to another word.

Certainly part of the problem appears to have been that Allen didn’t stay in her lane. Female success has always threatened some men. If her song West End Girl is true (she says events inspire the album), her ex-husband was challenged by her theatrical success.

And then later that evening you said how was my day I said I got some good news, I got the lead in a play. That’s when your demeanour started to change. 

Harbour was allegedly miffed that she didn’t have to audition for her role. Ahead of the premiere of her play, he shared a photo with a snide caption in which he appeared to mock his wife’s acting career. He joked that he was going to start "working on a pop album". 

Certainly, in footage I watched of a red carpet encounter with a reporter, he seemed less than thrilled about her nomination for an Olivier award, and her body language was appeasing. It raises questions about the sort of nonsense she had to endure in private.

The comments about the album on social media are sparky. “David Harbour opening up New Music Friday on his Spotify. Wait, is this album fucking about me?” 

“I love the thought of him [Harbour] listening. Also love the albums release comes just before he’ll be doing intense promo for stranger things”.

Lily Allen. The product of a damaged childhood, she was determined to raise her children differently and stepped back from her career.

A little bit vengeful. Maybe. The conflagration of speculation about Harbour has got to be tough on him, although that footage limited my sympathy. The hugely talented Allen is no stranger to manipulating media, but she’s done with the appeasing.

And instead of whingeing the world is overrun with bitter feminist harpies, we might actually examine why so many women, famous or otherwise, get browned off about the messages they are culturally fed from the cradle about keeping the prince happy.

There’s a valuable lesson in there somewhere, but let’s leave the last word to Lily.

"My strength is my ability to tell a story. And so, I'm going to lean into that. I have to. It's all I have."