{"id":149896,"date":"2025-10-28T16:53:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T16:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/149896\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T16:53:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T16:53:14","slug":"who-is-lily-allens-madeline-about-wait-i-dont-actually-want-to-know-pop-needs-its-mysteries-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/149896\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is Lily Allen\u2019s Madeline about? Wait, I don\u2019t actually want to know \u2013 pop needs its mysteries | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, to quote Lily Allen \u2013 who the fuck is Madeline? As mysteries go, this one didn\u2019t seem to last long. On Friday, Allen released her new album West End Girl<\/a>, which appears to concern her divorce from US actor David Harbour, with its highly detailed evisceration of an open marriage destroyed by a husband\u2019s emotional affair with a woman called Madeline. By Sunday, the press had already declared they\u2019d found Madeline: the Mail on Sunday printed an interview with a woman claiming she and Harbour had had a relationship. \u201cOf course I\u2019ve heard the song,\u201d they reported her as saying. \u201cBut I have a family and things to protect \u2026 It\u2019s a little bit scary for me.\u201d (Harbour, for his part, has not responded to the album\u2019s contents or to the Mail\u2019s claims.)<\/p>\n

On the song Madeline, Allen (or her character) sings about messaging a woman her husband has been sleeping with, explaining her worries that emotions are now involved: \u201cWe had an arrangement \/ Be discreet and don\u2019t be blatant \/ There had to be payment \/ It had to be with strangers \/ But you\u2019re not a stranger, Madeline.\u201d She then recites text messages sent by Madeline \u2013 \u201cHe told me you were aware this was going on and that he had your full consent \/ If he\u2019s lying about that, then please let me know\u201d \u2013 which the Mail claims were pulled from real messages.<\/p>\n

In interviews, Allen has said West End Girl references things she experienced in her marriage \u201cbut that\u2019s not to say that it\u2019s all gospel\u201d. She told the Times that Madeline is \u201ca fictional character\u201d and also a construct of several people \u2013 an explanation that sounds legally advisable and suggestive that more people may yet come forward to declare themselves Madeline. (No, I\u2019m Spartacus!) None of this is glorious. All of it is compelling.<\/p>\n

Compare Madeline, then, to the story of Juline Whelan<\/a>, a red-haired Canadian woman who came forward in 2016 to identify herself as the possible inspiration for Dolly Parton\u2019s 1972 song Jolene, pop\u2019s ultimate other woman. Parton herself has told a story about being inspired by a fan who approached her for autograph: \u201cI said, \u2018you\u2019re the prettiest thing I\u2019ve ever seen\u2019. She had red hair, green eyes and fair skin. And I said \u2018what is your name?\u2019 and she said \u2018Jolene\u2019. I said, \u2018I\u2019m gonna write a song about you and if you ever hear it, you\u2019ll know it was about you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But Whelan was just 10 when she approached Parton for a signature, which is far less alluring than the singer\u2019s other explanation \u2013 that Jolene was inspired by an unnamed red-haired bank teller who would flirt with her husband whenever he went into the bank. A great story for a pop song \u2013 whereas Whelan just found her possible link to the track annoying, telling CBC<\/a>: \u201cShe\u2019s a hussy, man \u2026 what little kid wants to be \u2018Jolene, don\u2019t steal my man\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

Think back to the fervour that greeted Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s 2016 album Lemonade and its many references to infidelities, which some of her fans speculated were about her husband Jay-Z. The most famous lyric in Sorry \u2013 about \u201cBecky with the good hair\u201d \u2013 immediately triggered an online witch-hunt to find the real Becky. Beyonc\u00e9 remained tight-lipped; the song\u2019s cowriter Diana Gordon called all the speculation \u201cso silly\u201d, adding<\/a>: \u201cIn what day and age from that lyric do you get all of this information? Is it really telling you all that much, accusing people?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes it is better to not know, and just enjoy the mystery instead. Carly Simon, regrettably, revealed one of three male inspirations behind You\u2019re So Vain (Warren Beatty) after decades of mutually enjoyed speculation. Ed Sheeran left so many details in Don\u2019t that fans quickly assumed it was about Ellie Goulding; Taylor Swift, meanwhile, barely hides which ex she\u2019s singing about, hooking fans with a constant sense they can spot the truth. Alanis Morissette, though, has never revealed who her splenetic You Oughta Know was about, sustaining the intrigue while also making it a more universal song.<\/p>\n

Whatever the truth or fiction, West End Girl has hit a nerve. It could just be our appetite for eye-watering gossip about a famous singer and her actor husband, sure \u2013 but it also reflects a new reality that married women (and men) are now facing, one where non-monogamy is becoming more common among the monogamous. Where Parton\u2019s song was a desperate plea for a beautiful, flirtatious woman to respect her marriage and stay out, Allen\u2019s songs tell the story of a wife who knows her husband is having sex with other women, and even signs off on it \u2013 but hates the possibility that he\u2019s emotionally invested enough to do things like play tennis with them. \u201cYou\u2019re just a little boy looking for his mummy,\u201d she sings on the final track; Madeline, whoever she is, can clearly have him if she wants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So, to quote Lily Allen \u2013 who the fuck is Madeline? As mysteries go, this one didn\u2019t seem…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-149896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115452838155238451","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}