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Lily Allen · S3 E6
Glastonbury
The festival that crowned her — and the chaos that surrounded it
Worthy Farm, Pilton, Somerset, late June 2007. Lily Allen walks onstage at Glastonbury with a plastic cup in one hand and a microphone in the other, and before she can sing the first line of "Smile," the entire crowd sings it for her.
"Common People" -- Pulp, live at Glastonbury 1995. The most legendary festival performance in British history. Jarvis Cocker walks onto the Pyramid Stage as an underdog and walks off as a national hero. Twelve years later, Lily Allen has a similar moment on the same farm.
The Moment It Becomes Real
Glastonbury 2007 is the moment Lily Allen stops being an internet curiosity and becomes a genuine pop star. A year earlier she was uploading demos to MySpace from her bedroom. Now she is standing on one of the most famous stages in British music while a festival crowd treats her songs like anthems.
TAP TO REVEAL: What was already going wrong behind the scenes at Glastonbury 2007?
“I remember looking out and thinking, these people know every word. A year ago nobody knew who I was. It didn't feel real.”
— Lily Allen, on Glastonbury 2007, interview with The Guardian [paraphrased: VERIFY]
Glastonbury 2007
Chinese -- Lily Allen
From It's Not Me, It's You (2009). A deceptively cheerful song about casual racism and the everyday prejudice Lily observes in middle England. The same directness that wins over a Glastonbury crowd powers this track. Greg Kurstin wraps the lyric in a sunny, almost nursery-rhyme arrangement.
Which Pulp album features "Common People"?
Glastonbury proves Lily Allen can command a festival. But the same fame that puts her on that stage also puts her on every front page in Britain. Next: the press turns, the headlines get personal, and Lily Allen discovers that the British media giveth and the British media taketh away.
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