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heydo not track west end girl, lily allenThe new tour de force of Divorce albumAnd I’m already addicted. Three tracks in, I’m messaging multiple friends about it at once, liveblogging their every thought and reaction to each soulful song. Five tracks in, my jaw is on the floor and will probably never get back to its former state. Who is Madeline? In fact?!
Any The album is spilling this much-awaited tea was always going to grab our attention (although Allen or, more likely, Allen’s lawyers have made it clear that singer’s wedding And after this Breakage with stranger things actor david harbor serves only as “inspiration” (and that fact mingles with imagination across 14 tracks). Who among us can resist the temptation of a celebrity scandal? Despite the fact that we will probably never know what is real and what is imagination, Alan’s stream-of-consciousness story But west end girl It feels as if we’re reading the dirtiest bits of someone else’s diary, including a West Village p***y palace and the now infamous Duane Reade bag filled with sex toys, butt plugs and lube.
But on my sixth (or is it seventh?) listen, I finally realized that the reason this album has grabbed me by the throat and refuses to let go is much more complex than a love of idle chitchat. It’s also not indicative of a morbid fascination with pain, that disgusting part of human nature that causes us to slow down and gasp while driving in a car accident. No, the real reason I couldn’t stop listening, besides Allen’s winning combination of painfully raw vulnerability and well-crafted songwriting, was the fact that she unexpectedly and massively broke a break-up taboo I didn’t even realize existed.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve somehow internalized an important idea about break-ups: If you’re the woman in a heterosexual relationship, you must maintain your dignity at all costs. No matter the circumstances, you should handle heartbreak “gracefully”, remaining demure like a royal dignitary the entire time. that’s your way winYou see – by showing the person concerned how incredibly balanced and, importantly, not crazy you are. Of course, you can be sad – a beautiful, sad person, crying softly without ever crying ugly – but never, Sometimes Anger. Because there is nothing more unattractive angry womanthere is? And the whole thing should be so rational that he always wonders whether he might not have made the biggest mistake of his life by letting you go. Call it weaponized goodness if you want.
Looking back, I think I’ve done this with every relationship I’ve ever had, ranging from a handful of dates to relationships that lasted years. When a man with whom I had an intense holiday romance that later continued for months told me he had “never been looking for a relationship before”, I said that was fine (it wasn’t). When I was an older man I acted aggressively love-bombing Me, won me over, then as soon as the matter became serious, immediately stopped answering my calls, I said I understood (I didn’t understand). Not once have I had the experience of telling someone who had wronged me that I was angry in no uncertain terms. I never unleashed the host of vengeful snakes that formed inside me after someone did me dirty. Heck, I’ve never heard “Bastard!” The word was not shouted. Let alone serving a drink to someone in a dramatic manner. At the time, it seemed more important to protect her image as a paragon of feminine virtues. But I wonder why?
Popular culture has a lot to answer for. The fact that the word “bunny boilerIt firmly established itself in colloquial speech after the 1987 thriller film fatal Attraction It shows how powerful and widespread the paranoia surrounding the “angry woman” ideal is. No one wanted to be labeled that kind of girl: brazen, deranged, crazy. It’s surprising how many men I’ve heard call their ex-wives “crazy” – terminology you’d rarely hear from a woman in the same circumstances. Well-intentioned women, meanwhile, will still appreciate female partners for how well they “handled” themselves during a relationship breakdown – which usually equates to keeping the lid on a boiling pot of anger inside.
I never unleashed the vengeful snakes inside me after someone did me dirty
But on his new album, Allen has now flatly refused to play that game. She’s devastated, confused, and, yes, mad as hell – And she won’t pretend otherwise to make herself look more palatable or make the world feel more comfortable. She might have started out on that well-worn path, singing on “Let You W/In”: “I’m protecting you from your secrets/Don’t tell the kids, the truth will be cruel/Your reputation is spotless.” But this particularly scorned woman will remain silent no longer. In countless searing songs she seethes with scorn and rage, exposing her unnamed tormentors with lines like “You’re so fucked up” and “What a sad, sad man/It’s giving out 4chan stans.”
Hearing that as a woman who never let a man see her true anger lest it make her look ugly, I felt liberated by those songs. They allow the wild, ugly parts of themselves to be exposed in a world that has forced us to stifle them. We don’t always have to be good. We don’t always have to look beautiful. We don’t always have to be like this, uh, Arrogant,
For too long, we have been taught the adage that a life well lived is the best revenge. But sometimes perhaps the best revenge is revenge.