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Lily Allen · S7 E5
Three
A lullaby for her daughters that breaks every heart
Lily Allen is putting her daughters to bed when she starts humming a melody she can't get out of her head. By the time Ethel and Marnie are asleep, she has the chorus to 'Three.'
"Three" by Lily Allen (2018). The most tender song on No Shame, written directly for her daughters Ethel and Marnie. The title is not a track number. It's how many people are left in the family after the divorce: Lily and her two girls.
The Writing
Lily Allen writes 'Three' in a single sitting, alone after putting the girls to bed. The song pours out almost fully formed: a simple melody, a direct lyric, and no attempt to dress the emotion in clever wordplay. It's the opposite of everything she's known for: no satire, no sarcasm, just a mother talking to her children.
“I wrote that song in about twenty minutes. It just poured out. I was thinking about the girls and what I wanted them to know, and the words were there before I'd even sat down properly.”
— Lily Allen, on writing 'Three,' BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour (2018)
Three, Lily Allen (2018)
'Three' is built around a single piano and Lily's voice, with almost nothing else in the room. Listen for how the melody moves in a gentle, circular pattern, like a lullaby that doesn't want to end. The vocal is intimate and close, recorded so quietly you can hear her breathing between lines. It's one of the shortest songs on No Shame, and it doesn't need a single second more.
TAP TO REVEAL: Why does 'Three' sound so different from every other Lily Allen song?
St James the Great Church, Cranham
The church where Lily Allen and Sam Cooper married in June 2011. Four years later the marriage is over, but two daughters remain. When Lily writes 'Three,' she's redefining what family means without erasing where it started.
Three: The Details
Pushing Up Daisies, Lily Allen
'Pushing Up Daisies' shares 'Three's preoccupation with what we leave behind. Where 'Three' is a promise to her children, this track sits with the darker question underneath: what happens to them if something happens to me? It's the song that reveals the anxiety running beneath every tender moment on No Shame.
Pushing Up Daisies, Lily Allen (2018)
Let the words play alongside the music. After the tenderness of 'Three,' these words take you somewhere colder. The fear of dying is really the fear of leaving, and every line here is written by a mother who isn't ready to go anywhere.
How old were Ethel and Marnie when Lily Allen and Sam Cooper separated?
Lily Allen has one more song for her daughters: 'Apples.' This one isn't a lullaby. It's a confession about the kind of mother she's terrified of becoming.
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