‘It was hard to make this’

British singer Lily Allen released West End Girl on Friday, her first studio album since 2018’s No Shame. The 14-track album, which was announced on Monday, was written in just 10 days last December.

“It was hard to make this record,” Allen told Perfect magazine. “It was incredibly manic, and it was emotionally traumatic.”

While Allen has not publicly specified or stated who or what the album is about, earlier this year she announced she was separating from her husband, Stranger Things actor David Harbour, after tying the knot in Las Vegas in 2020. She told Perfect magazine that writing the songs was her way of processing what she was going through privately.

“It just sort of fell out of me,” Allen said. “I think when I struggle with writing it’s because I’m worried about how things are going to be perceived or how things are going to be consumed. … This record was purely for me, and it was a way of processing things that I was going through in my private life.”

The lyrics emulate these feelings of “confusion, sorrow, grief, helplessness” that Allen said she was experiencing at the time, according to British Vogue. In “Ruminating,” Allen sings about losing sleep over envisioning someone she loves having a relationship with another woman: “I can’t shake the image of her naked/ On top of you, and I’m dissociated,” and then “Did you kiss her on the lips and look into her eyes? Now that it’s done/ Baby, won’t you tell me that I’m still your number one?”

On the song “Madeline,” she confronts the other woman — who she calls “Madeline” — after finding out Madeline has been seeing someone she loves behind her back: “Saw your text, that’s how I found out, tell me the truth and his motives/ I can’t trust anything that comes out of his mouth/ How long has it been going on?”

In the ninth track, “Nonmonogamummy,” she again talks about prioritizing this person she loves in her life, but feeling like it’s not being reciprocated: “I’m so committed that I’d lose myself cause I don’t want to lose you, you, you/ I changed my immigration status for you to treat me like a stranger/ Why do I feel like such a failure?”

What inspired the album?

While the songs draw from themes of heartbreak and self-reflection, Allen has offered limited details about the experiences that shaped them.

“There are definitely some things that happened in my real life that are reflected on this record,” Allen told Perfect magazine when the interviewer mentioned breakups. “I don’t know what I can say. Two people who were once together are not together. And that’s really sad.”

In December 2024, while speaking on her BBC podcast, Miss Me?, Allen said she was going through a “tough time,” but didn’t elaborate. She said she was having problems that she said were affecting her mental health, and she had stopped eating. She took a break from her podcast in January, before fully stepping away in September due to “focus on some other stuff.”

In terms of her album, Allen told British Vogue, “There are things that are on the record that I experienced within my marriage, but that’s not to say that it’s all gospel. … It is inspired by what went on in the relationship.”