Open Relationship And Adultery: Lily Allen

Beyoncé and Adele have proven that singing about adultery or divorce can lead to great success. Lily Allen is now experiencing this with her album, West End Girl, which details her failed marriage to actor David Harbour.

For those who need a reminder: Lily Allen made her big breakthrough in 2006 with her hit, Smile. Between 2013 and 2018, the British singer scored seven hits in the Dutch Top 40.

The forty-year-old Allen doesn’t mince her words in her music, as evidenced by her biggest hits. “Fuck You” was addressed to then-US President George W. Bush, and “Not Fair” is about a partner’s disappointing performance in bed.

In recent years, things have been much quieter around Allen musically. The singer released her fourth album, No Shame, in 2018, which didn’t receive much attention. West End Girl, released at the end of last month, is a different story.

Last weekend, three of her songs made it into the top twenty of the UK Spotify chart, thanks in part to the extensive media attention.

Affairs and the Pussy Palace
The album West End Girl largely chronicles Allen’s marriage to Stranger Things actor David Harbour’s breakup last year.

In the first track, also titled “West End Girl,” we hear the newly married couple move to New York with Allen’s two children.

The singer is then offered a role in a play and temporarily returns to London. We hear Allen having a phone conversation with her husband, with only her voice recorded.

The context suggests she hesitantly agrees to an open relationship because Harbour wants it that way. This proves to be the beginning of the end.

On “Tennis,” we hear her see messages on Harbour’s phone from a certain Madeline, with whom he’s having an affair. The agreement in their open relationship was that they would only sleep with “strangers.”

“But you’re not a stranger, Madeline,” she addresses her husband’s fling in the song “Madeline.”

And it doesn’t stop there. Allen doesn’t want Harbour in her bed anymore and sends him to his other apartment, where she drops off some things.

She then discovers that he uses that apartment for his sexual escapades, she sings about in “Pussy Palace.” She wonders aloud if he has a sex addiction.

On “Nonmonogamummy” and “Dallas Major,” Allen tries to survive the open relationship and the accompanying dating apps.

In the album’s final tracks, she seems to have come to terms with her separation from Harbour.