Everything I wish I’d said to Lily <3

Last night I went to Lily Allen’s West End Girl album signing. I didn’t think I was the type to get starstruck; having had a famous indie musician boyfriend at 19, I frequented the backstage of O2 Academys. I was part of the entourage— leaving out the back door, greeted by eager fans waiting in the cold dark for photos, which I’d often help take.

Then there was the absolute pleasure of not only meeting, but spending a week on a Grecian retreat with —and befriending— my favourite tell-it-how-it-is memoirist and beauty icon, Cat Marnell; who taught me everything I know about makeup, fashion, and hardcore drug abuse!

So meeting Lily at a signing? Piece of choux , I thought.

The signing location was kept secret until a couple of hours before the event, when ticket holders received an email revealing it would take place at London’s oldest French patisserie, Maison Bertaux. Located on Greek Street in Soho, opposite an entrance to Soho House I’d used myself just days earlier, after lunch there following a wander around the Marie Antoinette exhibition at the V&A.

The invitation sternly instructed ticket holders not to arrive before 6:30. Greek Street is busy and narrow, and the café was open until a brief closure to prepare for the event— it would’ve been carnage to have fans queuing outside all day. I really appreciated this approach. Not everyone can wait in line from the ass-crack of dawn to secure a good spot. It was refreshing to see some common-sense regulation around queues.

I arrived fifteen minutes early— not intentionally, but because I Ubered the second half of the journey to avoid being pelted and ruined by the heavy rainstorm. I had to buy an iced matcha (almond milk, no syrup) en route, because the Klonopin I’d taken to calm my nerves was making me incredibly drowsy. I couldn’t stop yawning!! This always happens when I’m on my period. As I’ve recorded many times before, benzos never make me drowsy— except during my time of the month. 

The matcha soon perked me up, as did the spike of adrenaline once I arrived. I put up my umbrella and stood sheepishly half-under the fabric awning, hoping I wasn’t about to cause a scene by being early. I noticed a small gaggle of people; one woman in a leopard-print fur coat looked at me knowingly. I walked over and asked if she was there for the signing. She told me she was one of the organisers, and that the queue would form on the street corner from 6:30pm. 

After this clarification, I sat down on one of the dainty chairs under the awning and took my umbrella down. I sat there for a couple of mins before my friend arrived. Soon after, we moved to join the queue which was just starting to form. We stood fifth from the front. I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to the front of a queue before! It was honestly the perfect placement; I would’ve been petrified to be first.

While puddles formed at our feet, we stood in that truly biblical rainstorm which only seemed to get heavier, for about an hour—maybe an hour and a half? I wasn’t watching the clock. My friend and I were too absorbed by the atmosphere, conversation and excitement!

A baby-blue van with white polka dots drove around Soho, blasting music from Lily’s new album before parking opposite Maison Bertaux. It was so cute and so camp I could’ve died!!

Once the event officially commenced, things moved fast. We were taken into one room to exchange our ticket for a vinyl record, its plastic half-peeled back for signing convenience. In this state it looked a bit like a condom halfway over the record— though that might just be my immature brain using humour to deflect from my building nerves!

I’d been practising a small script of what I wanted to say to Lily with my friend while we waited. But as we were transferred from the “record room” to the “Lily room,” my mind went completely blank.

Because there she was.

Dressed in outrageously luscious white fur, looking like an absolute snow bunny, with a small silver —probably diamond-encrusted— tiara nestled perfectly in her gorgeous black hair.

I have no idea why Christmas decorations were still up mid way through January, but strangely, they really complemented Lilly’s white fur and diamanté ensemble, the warm tone fairy lights twinkling.

As I walked towards her, all I could feel was pure, sparkling admiration. I know I was smiling ear to ear, completely transfixed by the moment.
“Omg, you look like a snow bunny,” I said girlishly, praying she’d take it as the high-value compliment I intended.

I then handed her a card I’d written a couple of hours earlier. I wanted to appear calm and composed— not creepy, like the mega-fan I secretly am, so I kept it brief. Perhaps too brief, I lament in hindsight. “Thank you for always keeping it REAL,” I wrote, along with another line thanking her for inspiring me. I also stuck on/in a few of my blog QR code stickers, hoping she might be curious enough to check it out. 

But in that moment, I wished I’d written her poetry.

I wanted to tell her about the first time I saw her perform— Glastonbury 2007, on the Pyramid Stage, when she walked out in that neon-pink prom dress. How I was six years old and between her melodies and that gown, believed her to be a true London princess. From that moment I was a fan for life. Her music became the soundtrack of my childhood, adolescence and still continues to be into my adulthood. Relating more than ever to the complicated emotions she autopsies in her sugar coated choruses. 

I wanted to tell her I know every lyric to every song, even the bonus tracks! That despite her 2018 album; No Shame not being a huge commercial success, I’d been devouring it on repeat for the last seven years. —It came out around the time I started sixth-form (monumental drug abuse years) and was played in the family car to all of my weekly mental-health hospital appointments. I’d zone out of heated conversations with my mother, listening to Lily’s cool cadence instead… Ever obsessed with her honest, vulnerable, cheeky and often hilarious songwriting. Lily tells REAL stories like no one else— with extremely evocative and eloquent language, leaving in all the weird, brutal, exposing and even embarrassing details most artists would cut. Her writing is the opposite of sanitised; it’s contaminated with personality and vulnerability.

West End Girl, especially, feels charged and deeply resonant— transportive and visceral, like a secret confessional with your best friend rather than a best-selling pop album. —And that is exactly the point, Lily doesn’t write songs the way she does in pursuit of mainstream popularity; she writes them in her truth. And the great success of West End Girl proves that truth is infinitely more compelling than anything artificial.

She completely dazed me when she asked for my name.

“Ella.” I snapped back into reality and watched as she wrote it and signed the album in silver Sharpie.

An assistant took a couple of photos on my phone, and before I knew it, our moment was over.

As I exited, I was handed a small French pastry wrapped in a perfectly on-theme baby-blue and white spotted napkin. As I took it, the paper insert slipped out of my vinyl sleeve and fell to the floor. I was still so dazed I didn’t even feel embarrassed by this calamity. I calmly asked the pastry lady for help while gathering my things. She slid the album back into its sleeve, and I tucked it into the Trader Joe’s tote bag I’d brought specifically to transport the record, the only tote I own big enough.

As much as I feel like a bit of an American culture vulture walking around London with a Trader Joe’s bag, they are truly the best, most practical totes in the world.

By the time I’d sorted myself out, my friend had had her moment with Lily too.

We took photos in front of the spotted van before seeking shelter from the rain— which was, yes, still pissing it down London style! Under the awning of a bar just down the road from Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, I called myself an Uber home.

My friend and I said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. From the back of the Uber, I texted her, and we relived the drug-adjacent high of the whole experience. I was practically vibrating! Everything felt surreal and my only regret was not telling Lily how much she’s changed my life— no biggie!

How she’s been such a positive, creative influence for me. How she’s shown women that we are allowed to take up space. To be loud-mouthed, emotional, messy, even mentally unwell. While also existing as a luminous, tender, talented and beautiful beacon for all the women who recognise themselves in her lyrics.