Lily Allen’s third single, Littlest Things, has an unapologetic simplicity that shows just how well she can do naked emotion, says Elspeth Waters
Lily Allen’s half-sung, half spoken ditties may not earn any accolades for poetical mastery or even inspire any great rush of emotion but they sure do get lodged in the brain. She has a jaunty frankness at which you can’t help but smile, while, at the same time, behind the “fu*k you world” jibes, there is a very precious quality to the songs’ unapologetic simplicity.
After the breezy, summery fun of Lily’s take on living in “LDN” (so-called, presumably, because actually writing London takes too long for those text-minded crazy kids), “Littlest Things” marks a return to the intimate revelatory style of the first single “Smile”.
Played out against a delightful piano melody, Lily’s vulnerability shines through more than ever in this latest number, as she sings of a time when love was sweet, and she “was just so happy in (his) boxers and (his) t-shirt”.
Love her or hate her for those trademark frock-sock-trainer combos and habitual fag-in-one-hand-other-hand-on-hip poses, it is hard to deny the genuineness of feeling behind her recollections of the things she loved and lost in this relationship.
Without her usual vitriol, in “Littlest Things” Lily proves she can do naked emotion, without getting too cutesy-pie in the process. And, if for the absence of any four-letter words alone, it is certainly more memorable than other tracks on the album.
Released 11 December 2006. Find out about forthcoming gigs on www.myspace.com/lilymusic
