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Lily Allen · S3 E5
Nan, You're a Window Shopper
The 50 Cent diss track nobody expected from a 21-year-old
Future Cut's studio, south London, late 2005. Lily Allen records a hidden track for Alright, Still in a single take: a 50 Cent parody rewritten about her grandmother's shopping habits, in a mock-gangsta voice that nobody in the room can keep a straight face through.
"Window Shopper" -- 50 Cent, official music video (2005). The song Lily Allen parodies on Alright, Still. 50 Cent raps about people who look at expensive things they cannot afford, a flexing anthem about wealth and status. Lily hears this and thinks: what if the window shopper is just my nan having a nice day out?
The Hidden Track as Mission Statement
"Nan, You're a Window Shopper" is buried at the end of Alright, Still as a hidden bonus track, but it might be the most revealing song on the album. Lily takes the hardest, most macho genre in popular music and domesticates it completely, replacing 50 Cent's drug dealers with a pensioner browsing the high street. It is a declaration of intent disguised as a joke: no genre is too sacred to steal from, and no one is too famous to parody.
TAP TO REVEAL: How did 50 Cent react to being parodied by a twenty-year-old from London?
“My nan goes window shopping and 50 Cent acts like window shopping is the worst insult you can throw at someone. I just thought, what happens if you put my nan in his song?”
— Lily Allen, NME interview, 2006 [paraphrased: VERIFY]
The Hidden Track
Him -- Lily Allen
From It's Not Me, It's You (2009). Lily questions God's existence over a cheerful pop melody, treating the Almighty with the same irreverence she shows 50 Cent and her brother. Greg Kurstin's production is deliberately church-like, with organ tones and choir-style backing vocals that make the blasphemy sound like a hymn.
How many tracks appear on Alright, Still's official tracklist, before the hidden bonus track?
The album is finished, the singles have charted, and the hidden track has become a cult favourite. But nothing prepares Lily Allen for what happens when she walks onstage at Glastonbury and sixty thousand people sing her words back to her. Next: the performance that changes everything.
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