Lily Allen Says Her Album ‘West End Girl’ Was Born as an ‘Act of Desperation’

West End Girl wasn’t made to make money. In a new interview with CBS Mornings, Lily Allen opened up about her incredible new album and how it was rooted in being honest to herself and processing her emotions.

“At the time I wasn’t even really thinking about it as, like, a commercial endeavor,” the British star said, explaining that she never felt pressure to hold back in her lyricism. “It was an act of desperation, actually.”

Allen continued: “While I was writing it, I wasn’t really sure that it was going to see the light of day. Up until relatively close to its release. I was always thinking, like, ’Is this something that I want to share with the world?’ But not when I was writing it.”

Across the album, Allen processes the struggles of being in an open relationship and an end of a marriage, across songs titled “Pussy Palace,” “4chan Stan,” and “Let You W/in.”
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“I think I was trying to tell a story and to process things, and there were things that, you know, had been going on in my life that I knew would suit a record like this,” she told CBS Mornings. “I knew those emotional beats that I wanted to hit in terms of the narrative, and I had ideas for titles for those things.”

A Rolling Stone commentary piece declared the album the “most brutal album of the year,” lauding the record for its deep honesty and “masterful portrayal of modern love and loss.” West End Girl is Allen’s first album release since 2018’s No Shame.