Lily Allen calls new album ‘an act of desperation’ after marriage split

Lily Allen's new album was "an act of desperation" and she wasn't even sure she'd release West End Girl. Photo / Getty Images

Lily Allen’s new album was “an act of desperation”.

The British singer released her long-awaited fifth LP West End Girl last month, just days after announcing the surprise project, and she admitted she wasn’t thinking about the record – which she wrote and recorded in 10 days following the end of her marriage to David Harbour – as a “commercial endeavour”.

Allen wasn’t convinced she’d even let anyone hear the album.

She told CBS News: “At the time I wasn’t really thinking about it as a commercial endeavour, it was just, it was an act of desperation actually.

“While I was writing it I wasn’t really sure whether it was going to see the light of day up until relatively close to its release. I was always thinking, ‘Is this something I want to share with the world?’ But not when I was writing it because the writing was very much ... I hate the word – I don’t hate it but I feel like we hear the words ‘catharsis’ or ‘therapy’ in relation to music [quite a lot].

“It’s an odd idea and an odd question that if you consider yourself an artist that you might think, ‘Should I really be sharing what’s going on in my brain as part of my art?’ That’s kind of messed up, that that is where we have got to as human beings.”

The 40-year-old singer previously insisted West End Girl isn’t a “cruel album”.

She told Interview magazine: “It’s not a cruel album. I don’t feel like I’m being mean. It was just the feelings I was processing at the time.”

Allen said she is in a different headspace now than she was when she wrote the record and doesn’t feel the need for “revenge”.

She said: “I mean, I wrote this record in 10 days in December and I feel very differently about the whole situation now. We all go through breakups and it’s always f****** brutal. But I don’t think it’s that often that you feel inclined to write about it while you’re in it.

“That’s what’s fun about this record; it’s viscerally like going through the motions. At the time, I was really trying to process things and that’s great in terms of the album, but I don’t feel confused or angry now. I don’t need revenge.”