Apples

Lily Allen tied the knot with Sam Cooper, a builder and decorator, on June 11, 2011 at St. James church in Cranham, Gloucestershire, England. They have two daughters, Ethel and Marnie, but by the time she began writing for her No Shame album in 2014, the marriage was failing. This sparse piece finds the singer, whose parents Keith Allen and Alison Owen separated when she was four, reminiscing about the early days of their relationship, until the reality of their marital breakdown hits home. I'm just like my mummy and my daddy I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree "It was devastating," Allen recalled to the BBC. "Ethel, my eldest, was four when me and Sam broke up. It really felt like history was repeating itself and everything I'd worked so hard to [avoid], ended up happening."

Putting a crumbling marriage into a song is something most singers can't handle, but Allen says she in an "oversharer," so she didn't have a problem with it.

Allen tried to provide an idyllic setting for her family, in contrast to the fractured one she grew up in. When this dream life out in the countryside with her husband and kids fell apart, she took it hard. "I wanted to provide a perfect life for my kids," she said. "I f--ked it up for them."