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Lily Allen · S6 E5
URL Badman
Social media trolls, Twitter wars, and fighting back online
It's 2am in 2014, and Lily Allen is on Twitter. A stranger has just called her fat, irrelevant, and told her to go back to being a housewife, and Lily is typing back faster than he can keep up.
"Lost My Mind" by Lily Allen (2018). Four years after the Sheezus-era Twitter wars, Lily makes a song about what constant online abuse actually does to your head. The production is dreamy and disorienting, like scrolling through your mentions at 3am and not knowing what's real anymore. This is the sound of what fighting trolls every day actually costs you.
The Original URL Badman
Lily Allen was an internet native before most pop stars had figured out how to send an email. She built her career on MySpace, blogged her way to a record deal, and was one of the first British celebrities to treat Twitter like a real-time conversation with her audience. The problem with that openness is that the audience talks back, and not everyone has something nice to say.
Lost My Mind, Lily Allen (2018)
'Lost My Mind' floats on a bed of hazy synths and a beat that never quite settles, mirroring the disorientation of someone who's spent too long staring at a screen. Lily's vocal sits slightly buried in the mix, almost swallowed by the production, and that's the point: this is what it sounds like when the noise starts to drown out your own voice. The lyrics are simple and repetitive, circling the same anxious thought over and over, the way your brain does when you can't stop refreshing your mentions.
“People tell me they hope my children die. They tell me I'm a terrible mother. And you're supposed to just ignore it, but you can't. It gets inside your head.”
— Lily Allen, interview with The Guardian (2014)
TAP TO REVEAL: What does 'URL Badman' actually mean?
The Cost
What starts as Lily clapping back at trolls gradually becomes something darker. By mid-2014, the abuse is constant: death threats, rape threats, and attacks on her children fill her mentions daily. She later writes in her memoir My Thoughts Exactly that the online harassment contributed to serious mental health struggles she wouldn't fully confront for years.
Lily Allen vs. The Internet
Wind Your Neck In, Lily Allen
'Wind Your Neck In' is British slang for 'shut up and mind your business,' and that's exactly what Lily Allen delivers over three minutes of sharp pop. It's a Sheezus bonus track hidden at the end of the deluxe edition that most listeners never discover. In the context of an episode about online trolling, it hits perfectly: a woman who's been told to be quiet by the internet every single day, turning the command right back around.
Wind Your Neck In, Lily Allen (2014)
Read the lyrics while you listen. The title is the most British possible way of telling someone to shut up, and the verses don't let up from there. This is Lily Allen at maximum volume, zero patience, aimed directly at everyone who thought they could shout louder than her.
What platform did Lily Allen famously use to launch her career before Twitter existed?
The reviews for Sheezus are coming in, and they're brutal. Next episode: what happens when the critics decide your comeback album isn't good enough.
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