Lily Allen is bare-all honesty in her new album, West End Girl, a bold reflection on the end of her four-year marriage with David Harbour, hinting at infidelity. Almost a year after their breakup was confirmed, the 14-track project opens with "West End Girl," where Lily recounts moving into a brownstone in New York—the same one she and the Stranger Things star shared in 2020—before returning to London to perform in the 2021 production of 2:22. "Later that evening you said how was my day / I said, 'I got some good news, I got the lead in a play,'" she sings. "That's when your demeanor started to change / You said that I'd have to audition, I said 'You're deranged.'" Despite finding her partner's behavior "quite strange," she ignored the feeling and became a "West End Girl." However, she couldn't let it go, staying up all night in "Ruminating," admitting that she can't "shake the image" of her husband's mistress naked.
Her thoughts continue in "Sleepwalking," where the 40-year-old—mom to daughters Ethel, 13, and Marnie, 12, with ex Sam Cooper—shares how she's with a man who "won't love me" but also "won't leave me." She accuses her love of letting her think those concerns were all in her head and "nothing to do with them girls in your bed."
In "Tennis," Lily reveals how she learned about her husband's affair with a woman named Madeline after he showed her a photo on Instagram. "It was how you grabbed your phone back right out of my hands," she recalls in the song. "So I read your text, and now I regret it / I can't get my head around how you've been playing tennis / If it was just sex, I wouldn't be jealous / You won't play with me and who's Madeline?" When she confronted her love about the information, she says he "came up to the bedroom" and made it all her fault, with her singing, "But you moved the goalposts, you've broken the rules / I tried to accommodate but you took me for a fool."
The situation becomes clearer in "Madeline" when Lily speaks with the other woman, who allegedly told her that the affair "has only ever been about sex." However, the "Not Fair" singer isn't convinced. A rage starts building in Lily as she calls her husband a "sex addict" living a "double life" in "P---y Palace." Specifically, she sings about finding a receipt for a purse from NYC's luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman while she was in London, calling her spouse a "coward" for not telling her the truth.
Amid his infidelities, Lily details opening up her marriage in "Nonmonogamummy," admitting that while he has other lovers, she doesn't "wanna f--k anyone else." "I'm so committed that I'd lose myself 'cause I don't want to lose you," she explained. "I changed my immigration status for you to treat me like a stranger / Why do I feel like such a failure? A life with you looked good on paper (I love you)."
"I've been trying to be open," she sings. "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." By track 11, "Dallas Major," she'd also had a partner outside her husband. "Yes, I'm here for validation and I probably should explain," she sings. "How my marriage has been open since my husband went astray."
With the final song on the album, however, Lily has an epiphany about the way her relationship ended. In "Fruityloop," she emphasizes, "It's not me, it's you / It's what you've always done, it's what you'll do / Forever till you die, it's true." She continues, "Thought that we could break the cycle
