In March of this year, I went to the royal concert hall to see Lily Allen perform her latest album: West End Girl. I was very excited, I hadn’t been an Allen fan for too long however, I was aware of ‘Smile’, the lead song on her debut album Alright Still released in 2006. But I hadn’t really been too aware of her most of my life. 

Then one day back in October last year, I was driving back from the highlands, listening to BBC radio 1 when the presenter mentioned in passing that Lily Allen was to bring out a new album this month, her first set of new work in six years. 

Now I had absolutely no knowledge of her marriage to David Harbour and certainly no knowledge of their pending divorce. So, when West End Girl came out on the 24^th of October, I went into with no warning or readiness, which I probably needed given the brutal honesty and level of detail within this album. 

The first time I listened, I wrongly assumed the husband in the album had cheated on the narrator with one woman and that this sole event ended their marriage. However, after listening to it non-stop, I saw how this album tells a story of a marriage disintegrating through multiple complex occurrences and emotions. 

There was so much going on in Lily Allen’s marriage, the heartbreak is so multi-faceted and the misery is so much more agonising when you listen to ‘Pussy Palace’ in which she discovers her husband’s rampant sex life that he has without her. Then you go on to ‘Just Enough’ which talks about how her husband always dangles enough love in front of her face to lure her into this one-sided power balance.

I think that West End Girl should be considered as more of a high art piece than a pop album; it’s so much more detailed and honest than anything currently in the charts.

Seeing it performed live was possibly the coolest thing I’ve ever witnessed. Allen began by walking through a ruched green curtain, wearing a pastel pink mini skirt and blazer jacket. She looked so wonderfully tall, her legs were so long, and her black beehive stood proudly above the audience. 

Each song was performed with its own set design and outfit, it wasn’t like watching a concert, it was a one-woman west end show. There was acting and props, the stage itself told a story with a messy bed and over the course of the show, the bedroom set began to disintegrate, there began to be lamps scattered all over the floor and the furniture began to disappear. Every aspect of the show was well thought out and told this same complex story of how two people who once loved one another can create this huge shadow between them. 

The show was fantastic, a perfect jewel in the West End Girl crown and truly her best work yet. 

At the end, my friends and I joined a crowd waiting outside the stage door, hoping to get a glimpse up close of the singer. Seeing her in person, I realised that she was so small, she couldn’t have been more than a few inches over five feet. Her pink skirt suit was replaced with a long brown overcoat that made her look even smaller. Her hair was still held neatly in that black beehive and her face looked flushed yet still beaming with pride.

She was so polite, engaging with every fan there signing CDS of old and new albums, vapes and even a man’s denim jacket. She got photos with everyone, and she was suddenly no longer this tall mighty performer. She was a woman who had had her heart broken and turned into high art. She then took this personal, funny, devastating poetry and performed it herself to the world, not as a singer but as a performer. And when I got a picture with her, she said that I smelled nice.