This contrast causes the listener to do an audio double take as her lyrics sink in after the superficial emotional lift of her melodies. This is certainly the case with her new Album, It’s Not Me It’s You.
Allen’s songs have been largely descriptive and often pessimistic comments about life. Its Not Me It’s You pushes the boat out even further. Allen has never been afraid to speak her mind but her latest album addresses a wider range of subjects and issues than ever before.
From racism and drug dependency to celebrity culture, the existence of God and TV dinners, It’s Not Me, Its You is Allen’s most diverse collection yet. Although still expressing her experiences as a young woman in often complex and painful relationships, she has also started to ask big questions and seek big answers from life in her songs.
So what is she trying to say with this album? Well, it’s intentionally a bit of everything. She still enjoys the tender beauty of a new relationship in ‘Who’d have known’, expressing all the usual feelings of excitement and uncertainty. But in just the previous song she is singing ‘f*** you’ with the sweetest voice possible while slating an apparently closed-minded, homophobic bigot. So her messages are mixed.
One common theme in her lyrics is loneliness. This huge emotion and longing for someone to share ourselves with haunts many young adults, showing Allen’s capability to hit the nail on the head when it comes to the struggles of her generation.
Of all the songs on the album though, her hit ‘The Fear’ is best known. It explores massive issues relating to celebrity culture and our society in general. Allen highlights our consumerist obsession, fuelled by our desire for money and success. When coupled with her comments on the fragile popularity we seek, and the general moral ambiguity around us, we realise that Allen produces much more than simple, feel-good music. She’s addressing big issues, for example:
I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore, I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore, when do you think it will all become clear, cause I’m being taken over by the fear.
We live in a world where right and wrong have become subjective concepts. Our lives are driven by a society which preaches money, success and power as leading to satisfaction, fulfilment and happiness. Allen’s song’s exhibit the shallow and unsatisfying nature of this message, but unsure of where to turn, instead she asks, ‘when do you think it will all become clear?’
