How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S3, Ep1 How to Fail: Lily Allen

Episode Date: January 2, 2019

Haaaappy New Year! We're back with a whole new season and we open with a bona fide musical superstar: Lily Allen.A singer, songwriter, the recipient of multiple awards, Lily's songs such as Smile and The Fear are observationally crafted with honesty and irreverent wit. In 2018, she was nominated for a Mercury Prize for her (brilliant) fourth album, No Shame, and published her memoir, My Thoughts Exactly, which was a Sunday Times Number 1 bestseller. In it, she writes unflinchingly about feminism, fame and family dysfunction. Oh, and shagging Liam Gallagher in an airplane toilet. She joins How To Fail With Elizabeth Day to talk about failing to be famous, failing to report a sexual assault, body image, children, marital breakdown, drugs and alcohol, songwriting and why, one day, she might just enter politics.I am SO EXCITED to have Lily on the podcast. It's so rare that someone this famous is also this honest and it's a real treat. I hope you enjoy listening. How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Chris Sharp and sponsored by 4th Estate Books My Thoughts Exactly by Lily Allen is out now published by Blink Publishing Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayLily Allen @lilyallenChris Sharp @chrissharpaudio4th Estate Books @4thEstateBooks     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. This season of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day is sponsored by Fourth Estate Books. This January, transform your life using the bullet journal method, a revolutionary new organizational system and worldwide phenomenon. Use the method to track your past, order your present and plan your future. Much more than a time management book, the bullet journal method will help you cut through the chaos and live with

purpose in 2019. You can find out more about the bullet journal method at forthestate.co.uk. Welcome to season three of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day. It is good to be back. And Happy New Year. I hope you had a lovely Christmas holiday. And if you didn't, that's okay too. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. Lily Allen has been described with some reason as a millennial national treasure. She's a singer, a songwriter, the recipient of multiple awards,

and for many of us, including me, the musical chronicler who told stories that took us from adolescence to adulthood. Her songs, such as Smile and The Fear, are observationally crafted with honesty and irreverent wit. But for much of her 33 years, the tabloid press paid more attention to Alan's private life than her professional talent. She was criticised for everything from being too outspoken, too privileged and for taking too many drugs. The level of her fame was such that sometimes it felt as though journalists forgot she was a real person. And yet Alan has lived more life than most. Her recent memoir, My Thoughts Exactly, was an unflinching meditation on feminism, fame,

and family dysfunction. Her fourth album, No Shame, is one of my favourites of recent years and tackles the breakdown of her marriage and her self-perceived failures as a mother. It was nominated for a Mercury Prize. It was nominated for a Mercury Prize. I've been a success and a failure, Alan writes in her memoir. I'm writing this to tell my story, because telling stories is important, especially if you're a woman. Lily, it's such a thrill to have you on the podcast.

I don't know what it's like hearing those things about yourself. It's like that intro to X Factor, isn't it't it's like 10 million albums sold yes exactly um i wonder if you could talk to us about that notion of storytelling being important as a woman what did you mean by that well i guess like just so often like good things or bad things that happen to women you're kind of meant to keep them to yourself, you know? Like, women should be seen and not heard, shouldn't they, really? So if you do brag about your achievements, then you're smug and full of yourself. And if you moan about things bad that have happened to you,

then you're being a victim. Yeah, you can't win. And it does feel... I mean, the book is so terrific. It's such an amazing read. And it feels that it's feel I mean the book is so terrific it's such an amazing read and it feels that it's come just at the right time in an era where women are sharing their stories more and more yeah it does feel like an interesting time in terms of women sharing their stories I mean it will only be interesting or an effective period of time if things start to sort of happen as a result things start to change I think at the moment we're in that bit where the people are telling the stories but we haven't quite got to

the follow-up and what happens as a result of people sharing their stories bit yet you're very honest in the book and I wonder if honesty comes naturally to you you seem like a very honest person I feel like an honest person yeah I, some people say I overshare. I don't know. I used to lie a lot when I was a child, and I used to feel so anxious as a result that I was constantly going to be found out for the little lies. Yeah, and in my sort of early adult life,

I sort of figured out if you just tell 100% the truth all the time, you won't feel that anxiety anymore. But actually, it brings on a different kind of anxiety, I found out. I mean, we mentioned there about women telling their stories. And I guess the prime example of that is the Me Too movement. You talk in your book about how you were assaulted by someone you name only as record company executive. And you also write, again, very unflinchingly about the fact that you didn't report it, that you failed to do that at the time. And I think that so many women can relate to that quote-unquote failure,

but can you talk to us a bit about why you didn't feel you wanted to pursue it? The assault that I remember happened abroad in another country, and there were difficulties with reporting it in that country anyway. But then when I did get back, I spoke to my lawyer, in fact, I spoke to two separate lawyers about what had happened and they just kind of responded in a very male-gazy way immediately. And whether that's because of the experience they've had in court dealing with these particular situations before,

they both were like, well, was alcohol involved? It's like, well, that's not there to be on. Do you know what I mean? It was just sort of scare tactics from the get-go, even from people that I'm employing for. Lawyers tend to want to encourage you to carry on. They want work, don't they? They want the hours. So it was a weird one.

I sort of became aware a couple of years later that what my lawyers at that point should have at least offered to me or made clear to me was that I could go through the civil courts. I didn't have to go through the police and didn't have to go through the criminal justice system. I could go through the civil courts instead. But no one gave me that option at that time. So I was in the dark, so to speak. It is extraordinary that sexual assault on women, particularly, and rape, are crimes that it feels that, historically, society has put the blame on them for the victim. So it's how the victim should have acted.

Oh, a guest coming in with cigarettes. Whereas you would never get that if someone was a murder victim. You would never get someone saying, well well what was she wearing that night? And also I think past behaviour as well which is always brought into question isn't it with rape or sexual assault and what was happening around that time and what were her behaviours suggesting and you're sort of like, listen if somebody stole my handbag

or if I stole a handbag and then somebody else stole my handbag two weeks later, doesn't mean that my handbag didn't get stolen two weeks later. Do you know what I mean? It's neither here nor there. If you believe what has happened has happened, then it's just not very easy to be able to report these things. It's so complicated, you know? How do you think you have processed that incident? I still haven't, really, you know,

because I don't feel like I've got justice in any way I wasn't able to name him and the person that did what they did to me is still working and thriving and not that me writing about my experience in the book should end up in him losing his job that's not what I'm suggesting but it is kind of mad that I don't know society just tells you as a woman that it doesn't like over it. Yeah. Also, because in the book you talk about your experience with a stalker and the fact that you were sort of disbelieved by police there as well. Well, I was. Not disbelieved, but I'll say sort of like gaslit

because I know what it is now. I can't tell you what their motivations were, but from my perspective, this guy had committed this horrendous crime and I believed that he would do it again. I still do. In fact, I got an email from him just on Friday or an email has appeared from him just on Friday, which clearly shows that he's still obsessed and is no further with his mental health. The police, the whole way through up until, you know, a couple of weeks before the case started, was still trying to make it a burglary case of him coming into my flat and taking a handbag. Whether it was because that was easier for them in terms of paperwork to deal with,

or it was bigger than that, I don't know. That's the trouble with these things, is that you're never really ever given an explanation as to why people handle things in a certain way. And I think that that unknowing is used against you. No one ever says, sorry, we mishandled it. Yeah. It wasn't all in your head. unknowing is used against you. No one ever says sorry we mishandled it. Yeah. It wasn't all in your head. He does want to kill you. Yeah I mean when I read that passage I was so taken aback by it and I wondered whether the police in handling it was somehow blindsided by your fame like it felt that they didn't take it seriously because you were

famous. Well I think there's that I think there might you know could be a bit of a presumption that I have millions and millions of pounds and therefore I could hire my own security team to make myself feel safe and that I don't deserve the you know police protection because I can afford my own that's not the case first of all and I sort of began to feel towards the end that maybe it was because that I was famous, they didn't want it to blow up because it's such a huge issue that if my case brought attention to the fact that there are lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of women in this country going through something similar, then they might have to do something about it. Right. That's the thing, no one ever tells you what the reasoning was.

You're just sort of left to deal with that on your own. It is extraordinary, isn't it, when you begin to connect the dots as a woman. Yeah. How many things that predominantly affect women are sidelined, ignored? Yeah, well, it's funny because I went to a dinner party a few weeks after it came out publicly about the stalker thing. And a couple of people were sitting around the table and a couple of women were like, oh, you know, something similar happened to me, but it was a nightmare. And then there was two men who were like, gosh, I can't believe that you had problems with the

Met because I had a stalker, a female stalker, and I called the police and they couldn't have been more helpful at sorting it out, both these men. I was just like, it could literally have not been more opposite for me. I was like, oh, that's nice. So you can imagine if you're like manning the phones at the police station and some woman calls you up and says, I'm being stalked by this guy. Immediately they start thinking, well, what were you wearing? Did you get your hair done that day? Did you have makeup on? But then a guy calls up and it's like this woman, she's barming, she's stalking me. And they're like, oh, we'll send someone right away. So that doesn't sound right at all. It's like it's always easier to believe a woman's hysterical.

A woman's talking to you? Gosh, that sounds terrifying. Let us just send over our entire constabulary. It's like, I remember there was this story in the news a few months ago about a man whose girlfriend had broken up with him and he refused to accept it and was sitting outside her flat playing the piano

until she changed her mind and the way it was reported to begin with the way it was reported to begin with was like quite sweet how romantic yeah exactly how sweet and you're like no that's stalking stalking and also ignoring what a woman has told you and what her boundaries are so insane you talk there about the perception that you have a lot of money and again another thing that you are refreshingly honest about is the fact that you have to go out and earn money and that you haven't always been great at handling it have you got terrible business and I think that like a lot of people in this business suddenly come into a lot of money

firstly a lot of people come into spinners earn a lot of money and spend a lot of money and that's the end of it and end up not as wealthy as they were when they entered but I left school when I was seven or 15 16 17 17 you know like no one taught me about savings or it was like right here's a record deal oh suddenly a millionaire and how I didn't know my parents weren't particularly interested in money. I don't know. I'm just not a good business person, basically. Do you think that should be taught in schools? 100%.

But it's probably not for a reason, right? Because society is obsessed with youth. So if youth know how to look after their money properly from early on, then the balance of rich and poor would suddenly change. Young people would have loads of money and old people wouldn't are you teaching your daughters I mean I know they're really young but will you teach your daughters about things like that no because I still don't know how it works but I think their dad will you know their dad's pretty thrifty

according to Archibald no i'm joking um no i teach them more you know about the value of money and stuff now they're six and seven or about to be six and seven so they're not spoiled by any means i don't think i still don't understand it the music industry is a minefield in terms of how complicated it is you get money from so many different agencies and i still don't really know what any of them stand for or what they're about. But I think, again, that's by design because young people and artists are not business people. That's why they're artists. They're interested in different things, you know?

So you hire a bunch of people to take care of that for you and those people, if there's a recession on, might dip where they shouldn't. It's all about trust and you can't really trust anyone, is what I've learned. You became famous so young, talking of youth, and you mentioned the tabloid press invented this kind of character of Cartoon Lily, who you talk about in the book,

almost as a sort of third person. Just tell me about fame and how the fuck you handle it at that level when you were that young. Well, first of all, it was insane. And it's quite hard to explain it to young people now because the world has changed so much. But it was not just, like, invasive and malicious in lots of ways, but it was physical, you know, like I would walk out of that door.

We were sat in my flat, by the way, and every day there would be 20 guys on mopeds or cars following me all day long. But this is pre-Instagram, you know, so I guess like news agencies now, tabloids, A, don't have the money to pay these people to keep you under surveillance all day like they used to because their readerships are non-existent. But also everybody posts everything up on their social media now, so they can just take that. And all people want to look at his pictures. So yeah, that was kind of insane. I think I was just traumatised by it all, really.

There's an extraordinary bit in your memoir where the son finds out you're pregnant before you know you're pregnant. Yeah. Which is super surreal. Yeah. memoir where the son finds out you're pregnant before you know you're pregnant yeah which is super surreal yeah talking about failure which is also the topic of this podcast do you think you failed to be a famous person or at least the famous person that people wanted you to be yeah I do but I think that it's funny because I became famous in 2005 2006 and the world really started to change and accelerate at that exact time.

I came up on a website called MySpace, and it was the first time that artists or famous people sort of had some sort of autonomy over what went out. You know, people could write things about us, and for the first time you had the right to reply. I don't think that it's coincidental that so did the Mail Online. You know, that was when suddenly opinion became a factor it's interesting I think now quite often in interviews people will sit down with me and they'll say you know why do you do it why do you go on Twitter and argue with these trolls or why do you have to put your political opinions out there into the ether and I sort of think like the question isn't why do I do it I think the question is why doesn't everybody else

The question isn't why do I do it? I think the question is why doesn't everybody else? You can call me a pop star or a celebrity or whatever, a belittling kind of name that you want to call it, but artists have always commented on the world around them and reported on it as such in a way. And I think what people are saying when they say why do you do it is like, can you dumb yourself down, please? Your role as a pop star is to film yourself in the gym

losing weight and getting abs and then film yourself getting hair and makeup and put that up on your social media and talk about how much you love Simon Cowell. And if you don't want to play that game, then you're playing a different game and it's an aggressive game for some reason. But it's not.

I don't think I'm weird for taking an interest in the society that I grew up in, you know, and I've done that always in my lyrics, so it should come as no surprise, but maybe that's why the tabloids went for me so quickly, was because I did that, you know. In my music, I tackled those subjects, and I listen to songs like The Fear now,

it's just sort of like, wow, like, they must have hated you. Like, you're calling out all of these people. And you were so young and female while doing it. It's like two things that would cause their minds, the minds of a white male tabloid editor of a certain age, to explode. That seems to have quietened down a bit, the tabloid stuff with you. Do you feel that? Yeah, I think probably because of these legal actions more than anything else.

Right. And I think that the damage that they've inflicted on me has worked in a lot of ways. And so they don't see me as much of a danger. I think what possibly they hated more than anything was that I did talk about these subjects and I talked about it in a forum like you and I are talking now. But I also talk about it in my music in a language that people that I wouldn't necessarily be interested in politics can understand you know and that's got to be terribly threatening to those people I think so it's always just been discredit her discredit her discredit her because what she says makes perfect sense and she's talking in a language that people can understand that we can't

talk in by the way you know and that's arguably more powerful than what they are. And I always think, you know, if you can get celebrities to sell shampoo and make-up and food, do you know what I mean? Like, why wouldn't they be able to sell politics? You pay them to sell everything else under the sun. So if they're convincing enough to get people to buy into that stuff, why on earth would people not believe them with things of more substance and I remember being really shocked at how badly you were harangued when you

made that trip to Calais and also when you spoke out about Grenfell and actually reminding myself of that in preparation for this interview I was shocked all over again because what you were saying in both instances was really just so obviously patently true and right-minded and compassionate yeah but it was at a time you know Brexit was you know who hadn't voted on Brexit yet I don't think with the Calais thing and the Grenfell thing was still in this negotiating period and it's the same thing these problems exist because the super rich are stockpiling their money and not paying their tax and people that are vulnerable and aren't white are getting the blame and again if somebody can prop their head up and counter that argument in an articulate way that people can understand then no too much would you ever

go into politics yourself? I might have to, because I don't think I could do pop music for much longer. I would vote for you. Me and Kanye. Imagine Kanye was president and I was prime minister. Be lit! You write in the book about codependency, which again is, I think, something so many people, particularly women, can relate to.

I get so many messages from people going, I had no idea what this thing that I've been living my entire life was called. Thank you. Yeah, will you explain it to the unenlightened among us? What it is and how it manifests itself with you? Well, it's basically like I need a sounding board the whole time and find it quite hard to make decisions about my life myself and so it's easier if I can put somebody else in in the situation with me so I've always had a boyfriend I don't

at the moment I'm single the first time I'm sorry about 15 um I'm not sorry it's great it's great I'm just sorry because I've also had like the worst week so and we've been broken up for about three weeks but yeah it's just been bad news after bad news after bad news and I think the fact that I haven't you know called him and been like can you come around for a cuddle it means that it's big for me because ordinarily when things get difficult I do need to have somebody around to share those problems with so the fact that I'm dealing with it all on my own I'm growing up that's amazing and I'm so sorry to hear about that breakups are the worst does that come from you describe your quite chaotic childhood and I wonder whether it comes from a sort of need to be loved because

you never had that sort of really unencumbered very straightforward love that we read about I mean I don't want to I feel when I've talked about this my childhood was not loveless but my mum was an incredibly hard-working human being my dad was out of the picture because you know he was doing whatever it was that he needed to do at the time. But my mom had three kids to look after. And, you know, if she could have been there, she would have been there. I think I'm making a presumption there, but I'm pretty sure she would have. But she had a life as well. And there were things that she wanted to achieve. She just happened to have three small children at the same time, which meant that we were left wanting somewhat. Motherhood is something

that you knew you always wanted in your life and I hope you don't mind my asking you about this but again I think it's such an important female experience that doesn't get enough airplay and I have had a miscarriage but not to the extent of the trauma that you experienced when you gave birth to George your first child can I ask you about that and what happened um it's such a sort of long story you know it's not something that ever leaves you so it's still ongoing I think but essentially you know I went into early labor very far along in my pregnancy. And when I was in labour actually delivering him, it became apparent a few hours into it that I was going to be delivering a baby that wasn't going to survive.

And I remember physically like a sort of armour going on at the time. It was like I was sort of gearing up to go to war. And I don't know if that armour has ever come off. It's a really difficult thing to explain, but when you go into a traumatic situation like that, there are certain ways that you have to behave in order to survive them or to be able to comprehend them, and mine was to just completely disconnect from my body and self. And I was wandering around, like, you know, not knowing who I was or what I was wandering around like you know not knowing

who I was or what I was for a long time afterwards. I'm so sorry Diddy. Yeah me too. Who would have been eight this year? But yeah it was incredibly painful but I'd never known what real pain was up until that point. And in a way, that was a blessing, you know, because it sort of, what happened to me happened to me. But I had people around me that loved and cared for me. And the idea that there were other women going through something similar

that didn't have those support systems, you know, which I'm sure exist, it got me thinking about other people a lot more than I ever had done before up until that point, which I'm grateful for, you know. As someone who creates music and helps other people make sense of the world, did music help you, other people's music,

did it help you get through that? Yeah, I think it did but I think also because the range of motions was so extreme literally any song that I listened to I could turn into relating it to that experience somehow so I remember when we left the hospital empty-handed so to speak and um me and Sam getting in the car and driving up to the countryside that he was playing this sort of mixtape and I remember all of the songs really well. And I honestly couldn't talk for a long time after what happened, you know. I was just very silent.

A lot of time to think, you know. And, yeah, I think music did... I don't know if it helped, but it was a form of sort of human... like a reminder of feeling and emotion, which I just didn't have at that time. I just... Honestly, I can't know if it helped, but it was a form of sort of human, like a reminder of feeling and emotion, which I just didn't have at that time. Honestly, I can't explain to you. I had to completely disconnect myself from emotion and pain because it was too vast to deal with at that time.

Music did help, for sure. Do you talk to your daughters about him? I do now because in the book it's dedicated to George Ethel Armani. So they're like, who's George? We did have that conversation with them and they don't understand the gravity. They don't get it, but they know they've got an older brother and he's not here anymore. They know enough, but they haven't sort of prodded me on it. Thank you so much for talking about it.

You say that he would have been eight and you mentioned earlier that your daughters are seven and six so you had a lot of time being pregnant oh my god well yeah I mean I think it's sort of indicative of me is that when someone or the universe tells me I can't have something, I go, fuck you. I am going to have babies. And that became my sole focus, you know, from that point onwards, was he's not here, but I am going to get my babies. And I hated being pregnant. I hated it. And Marnie was unplanned, who came after Ethel, who's my oldest.

Yeah, when I found out I was pregnant with her, which was three months after Ethel was born. So George died, and three months later I was pregnant after Ethel who's my oldest yeah when I found out I was pregnant with her which was three months after Ethel was born so George died and three months later I was pregnant with Ethel and then she went full term and then three months later I was pregnant with Marty oh my god and I just kind of thought I hate being pregnant so much I'm just going to get it all out of the way while I can did you hate being pregnant because of what had happened the first time? So you, I can imagine one would be incredibly anxious. There was that, but then also, you know, I gained astonishing amount of weight because I was not able to exercise while I was pregnant because I was pretty much on bed rest after what happened to George. So

I honestly, I sat and I think I watched the West Wing like two or three times, the entire series. And ER, why somebody who'd been through what I'd been through would want to watch programs about hospital rooms, I don't know. But yes, I just watched a lot of DVD box sets and ate a lot of biscuits. And the pop star switch went off and I became a baby maker for a bit. And yeah, lay in bed for about two years. It was pretty fun how do you feel about your body now it's not ideal um i wish that my body was like naturally live and skinnier and it would make my life a lot easier

in terms of promotional work and stuff yeah it's okay why would it make it easier in terms of promotional work and stuff. Yeah, it's okay. Why would it make it easier in terms of promotional work? I don't know. I guess just like if you're skinny and model-like look like, then, you know, more magazines will take pictures of you and fit into the clothes easier and make everyone's job easier. Well, I think you look amazing and you've produced three children. Thanks. So your body is an amazing thing.

You know what? It really is an amazing thing. When the George thing happened, I remember the doctors taking us into this room, which was for premature babies, and he was like, you know, this machine does this, blah, blah, blah. Everything in this room costs like £30 million or something. That's how much equipment is in this room. And then the nurse lady that was showing us around said, but you do all of that in your tummy,

so you've got 30 million quids worth of equipment inside you, which is kind of crazy. Also, what a great thing to hear. What a great thing for a woman to say to another woman at that particular juncture. Yeah, she's like, you do all this. This brings us on to talk about Sheezers, which was your third album. Yep.

And I hesitate to talk about it in the context of failure, because not that it wasn't a great album, but I think how you perceived of it, definitely in the book, was something of a failure because you didn't feel you were being true to yourself. Is that right? Well, I think there's a bit of that, but then also I think that the tabloids were writing about me as if I was a massive failure at the time so it's only so much telling yourself that you're doing okay when everybody's saying haha you used to be this

successful and now you're half as successful so you're a failure I do think when I was writing that record I probably was suffering with well I was suffering with postnatal depression and it's the first time that I'd approached a record in terms of it being a job and a means to an end. That hadn't happened before. And what came out in terms of the material was, I think it was decent, but it just wasn't great. And everything I'd done before was great.

So, yeah, I don't know. I just lost faith in it halfway through. And I think there were a lot of contributing factors to that. I think, you know, I was struggling with being away from my kids for long periods of time when I'd spent a good three years just focusing on them and having them, you know, and then suddenly it was like you're yanked away and don't talk about black people because you're a pop star.

People don't really want to hear about babies and vaginas and things like that. So, yeah, let's keep that to a minimum. And you should be back in shape as well, you know, which was hard. Basically meant sort of starving myself. So I was a bit mad from not eating. Then alcohol became an issue and drugs and sex. Yeah, I just, I think I have lived life to the extremes from a very young age and I achieved a lot in my early 20s.

And I think I maybe sort of had my midlife crisis in my late 20s, you know. Life as a female pop star is actually quite short anyway, so it kind of makes sense that they don't tend to last throughout their 30s so I guess if you applied that career to any other normal person then yeah your late 20s sits about right in terms of midlife crisis during this time your marriage was breaking down and I wonder if as someone who historically identifies as a codependent you were trying to end it in ways that you didn't have to confront it so you were going out and having sex with people and do you think that's what was going on I'm not sure I mean I've just come back from tour in America which is where I was when things went wrong with me and Sam

and the same thing happened in my current relationship you know I mean I didn't take loads of drugs and have lots of sex with other people but I think that people deal with touring and stuff differently and I'm a real home person you know I love my home comforts and I you know love my children and I love routine and so to be taken out of that and be on a tour bus in the middle of nowhere without that sounding board and that person to talk to every day, yeah, I just became very lost. Touring throws up all these weird sort of existential questions anyway. You know, like when you're getting ready to go on tour,

it's all about packing, making sure you've got everything that you're possibly going to need for that long period of time away. And then two or three weeks into it, you like well what am I doing here I'm here because this is my job and this is how you're going to pay off your mortgage in a house that you can't live in unless you're not living in it if that makes any sense yeah but a couple of weeks later you're like well actually all I need is a backpack and a phone like I don't need all the other stuff don't need the house I certainly don't need all the stuff that's in it like it's all just yeah because you're basically sitting on a bus for 22 and a half hours a day until you get on stage for an hour and a half

I've never even thought about it in those terms like how yeah how messed up that is. If I think just from my own perspective of how exhausting travel is just a flight a long-haul flight is and then to layer on top of that all of this other stuff. Yeah and also because I guess like since streaming and stuff and since making an album and putting it out there is not enough now you can't live off of that. that streaming has completely devalued the product so the one way in which to make money is to tour and the other way is branding and the branding thing is a lot easier if you subscribe to the gym bunny makeup game and the touring thing is not well suited to being mother of two small children it just isn't when you're planning a tour and you're

rooting a tour and certainly on the she's this thing I mean it was better this time around because I had experienced it the wrong way but this time around we built the tour around the kids half term so that they could come out to see me in New York and it wouldn't be six weeks away it was only going to be two and a half weeks and then on each side but it wasn't like that with she's this it was an experiment and it was a really fucking hard one you know I learned a lot from it which was you're a mum and you're an artist and you've got to be really strict with the people around you in terms of making it clear that both jobs have to be done and be done well because if you don't make that clear nobody else is going to take that into account they just want to get you around whichever country you're touring in the cheapest way possible the most profitable way there's a

great song on your fourth album no shame which I absolutely love and we were chatting before we started this podcast about whether I'd listened to the album before I read the book and I had just for my own pleasure and recommended it to lots of people and then did the embarrassing fangirl thing of tweeting about it and then Lily Allen liked my tweet but part of the reason I love that album so much is not only the quality of the sound there's just something about the way you sound and the samples you use that I love but the lyrics are amazing and there's one song you know there's one song, you know, there's one song there. I've listened to it so much, Lily, honestly. Three, which is all about your then three-year-old daughter,

about how you haven't had a chance to get to know her friends properly, how her social life is more full than yours, and how today she made a papier-mâché fish, Mum, but you weren't around to see it. Yeah. And it's such a beautiful song. Is that where it all came from, from this experience? There's a book, actually, it might be up here somewhere,

called How to Listen So Kids Will Talk and Talk So Kids Will Listen. Much as I wanted to have kids, I've not really been around many children. I don't have, well, I do have cousins, but they live in Wales and I wasn't around when they were little. And my peers hadn't started having kids yet. I was relatively young when I started chucking them out. I guess because I had postnatal depression and I was spending long periods of time away from them,

I struggled with when I came back from tour to connect. Yeah, I just ended up in the studio writing one day. I knew that I wanted to have a song on the album about my kids, but I didn't know that it was going to come out like that from their perspective. But I knew that I wanted to have a song on the album about my kids but I didn't know that it was going to come out like that from their perspective but I love that song and they love it oh do they that's nice but they keep saying like when are you going to write another one it's like the other one I love from the album particularly is family man which it was only I think in an interview that I read with you that I realised you had written it from your perspective as you being the family man yeah yeah tell me about those

lyrics why what did you think it was when you first heard it sorry I'm just interested no no so I thought it was the family man referred to Sam your ex-husband and you were singing it from your perspective but about what he was going through. I think it's a bit of both. And I think it's sort of like, it plays with the idea about gender roles within a relationship or within a marriage, cis marriage. Still, people, if I'm, you know, if I get photographed,

like I did last night, you know, at an event or whatever, and you look on the comments on the Daily Mail, it will always be like, why don't we ever see her with her kids and the main answer is that it's because I work and you see pictures of me when I'm at work and people don't usually bring their children to work I mean that song is about I guess being away and engaging in behavior that you would normally associate as being male behavior but it isn't as mine but I'm also the main breadwinner and all the responsibilities in terms of mortgage repayments and shopping bills is mine so I guess if I call myself a man it's easier for people to understand

isn't that fascinating it's easier to process all of those concepts yeah what's your relationship with failure now you lily allen what do you think of failure and what you've learned from it in your life um i don't know i mean i'd like less of it tph um i'd like to win a bit more. No. You do learn things from failure and you learn how not to make the same mistakes again, I guess. I've always been a failure. That's so interesting that you say that. I know that you're laughing,

but so many people will look at you and think you're an astonishing success, but how interesting that it doesn't feel like that inside. Yeah, yeah. Do you think you've been successful yes good but I'm really wary you know I'm really aware of my age and where I am you know where I sit now in the industry that made me successful and it's definitely I feel like I'm on the sort of periphery now it's really sad I think because now I've got a wealth of experience and I can

write about really interesting things, but it's like, no one wants to hear them because you're old. But that's by design, you know. That's the patriarchy trick, isn't it? Can we talk about Piers Morgan? We probably have to. We'd probably rather not. I didn't realise that he was editor-at-large of Mail Online until the other day. Yeah.

So he had an issue with you. You were meant to go on Good Morning Britain or something. I don't really know what the story is, but it was around the time of release of No Shame. There was, you know, an offer to go on there and then that offer was revoked. And he publicly, you know, decided to try and humiliate me by saying it has to be a hit. So that's not how promo works. Like people go to promote something before it's come out in order to make it a hit. He just no-platformed me, basically. That's what he did. How sweet it must have felt to be nominated for a Mercury Prize after that.

Yeah, and also to have a number one Sunday Times bestseller. Yes! Do you think you'll write more books? Yeah, I do. I really enjoyed it. Fiction or non-fiction? Non-fiction. I've been thinking a lot about writing a book about the internet and social media, and there are people that are doing really, really well on social media now, but I feel like I have a unique insight in that I had a really strong following right at the beginning, and have sort of carried that through to now on different platforms.

But I watch things and take sort of mental notes, and what it's done to us as human beings and our behavior I think is absolutely fascinating so yeah maybe I'd write a book about that are you ever intimidated by anyone that you meet no I don't think so you see that's what I love about you you're courageous yeah I don't know I'm really interested in like power and power structures and not necessarily like wanting it for myself but watching how people use it to their advantage and generally rich and powerful people are not very nice I don't think yeah I kind of want to get to the bottom of that what's the number one thing that people say

when they recognise you're on the street? How many migrants have you got living in your house? No. No. People say that... A lot of the time people will be like, you're much prettier in real life. Oh, my God, how do you take that?

I just think, fucking bastards, the press, they just published the most horrible pictures of me on purpose to build this picture of somebody that isn't me. So yeah, there's that. And people do say, oh, you're much nicer than I thought you'd be. I'm like, I don't have any control over that stuff. Yeah, less gobby. Yeah.

Lily Allen, I think you're're terrific thank you so much for speaking to me so honestly and eloquently and if you do go into politics i will be first at the voting booth thank you thank you