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Lily Allen · S7 E6
Apples
The cycle of family patterns — and the terror of repeating them
Lily Allen is writing a lyric about her father Keith Allen when she stops and stares at the page. The line she just wrote could be about herself.
"Him" by Lily Allen, live at EXIT Festival (2009). A track about questioning the highest authority there is, performed at the peak of her It's Not Me, It's You era. Both 'Him' and 'Apples' are about the same thing: looking at the forces that shaped you and wondering whether they got it right. One questions God, the other questions Keith Allen.
“I looked at my parents and saw all the mistakes they made, and then I looked at my own life and realised I was making all the same ones. That's what 'Apples' is about. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and that terrifies me.”
— Lily Allen, interview with The Guardian (2018)
The Tree
Keith Allen is an actor, comedian, and force of nature who raised Lily in a world of parties, famous faces, and casual chaos. Alison Owen is a film producer who built an extraordinary career while navigating a complicated personal life. Lily grew up watching both parents live loudly and messily, and she loved them for it. Now she's a mother herself, and the question she can't escape is: how much of that mess is genetic?
Him, Lily Allen (2009)
'Him' imagines God as a bloke sitting on his couch watching telly, and the whole track is Lily asking: if you're in charge, why is everything such a mess? Listen for the music-box melody that Kurstin wraps around the vocal, giving the entire production a nursery-rhyme quality that makes the philosophical questions land harder. The tone is playful, but the doubt underneath is real. It's the same energy that powers 'Apples' a decade later: who is running this show, and should we trust them?
TAP TO REVEAL: What specific pattern is Lily terrified of repeating?
The Confession
'Apples' is the bravest song on No Shame, and that's saying something on an album that covers divorce, stalking, and mental health. It takes real courage to stand in front of an audience and say: I'm afraid I'm a bad mother. Not because anything terrible has happened, but because you've seen what can happen, and you know it's in your blood.
The Apple and the Tree
Hammersmith, London
The West London neighbourhood where Lily Allen was born on May 2, 1985, and where the Allen family story begins. Every fear in 'Apples' traces back to this postcode: the parties, the absences, the chaos, and the love that held it all together despite everything.
Who Do You Love?, Lily Allen
'Who Do You Love?' is a Sheezus-era bonus track that asks the kind of direct, uncomfortable question that 'Apples' dances around. Where 'Apples' wraps its fears in metaphor, this song puts the question bluntly: who do you actually love, and are you showing them? It's a bridge between the Sheezus era and the raw honesty of No Shame.
Who Do You Love?, Lily Allen (2014)
Read the lyrics while you listen. The directness of the question in the title is what makes this track hit. After an episode about the fear of failing your children, these words cut through every metaphor and ask the only thing that matters.
What is Lily Allen's brother Alfie best known for?
Lily Allen has one more confession to make. 'Everything to Feel Something' is the song where she admits what she did to survive the pain, and it's the rawest three minutes of her career.
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