Getting older, a topic of discussion that seems to grow chicer with each passing Diane Keaton movie. For Lily Allen, “ancient” by white girl pop star standards (and basically even normal white girl standards), this is the subject that is explored with her usual candor on “Trigger Bang.” As the leading single from her forthcoming album, No Shame–the first LP she’s put out in four years–one can expect that the theme of this song will be rather ubiquitous. This notion of looking back on one’s youth with a nostalgic fondness, but also knowing full well that those days are done and can never be re-created. Not everyone can be Madonna, elongating folly (read: sex) and rebellion. One needs to be a Leo and Midwestern for that.
With her collaborator on the track, Giggs, the concept behind the Myles Whittingham-directed video is intended to serve as a loving, if not “what the fuck was I thinking?” homage to each of their “ratchet ’06” pasts. Allen fans need no reminder that this was the year her debut Alright, Still came out on Regal Recordings after self-promotion on MySpace largely launched her into the spotlight (oh to re-create the simplicity of self-starting MySpace fame–but again, what’s past is past). The record that started it all makes a cameo in one of the dresser drawers of a younger version of Giggs before he goes out to hang with the “cool gang.” In the meantime, Allen’s indiscretions are fueled by alcohol and “everyone knows what cocaine does,” ergo some poor sexual decisions. The kind that lead someone to say, “‘Did you bang, no?’ I shake my head, I say ‘No-no…Maybe we did, I don’t think so.'”
At one point standing still as everyone speeds around her in an accelerated motion, the next frame finds early twenties Allen dancing with increasingly less zeal. And again, this was the girl who got her start selling ecstasy in Ibiza, so she had been well-seasoned by the time most people were just starting, making it, one would imagine, far easier to grow weary with ennui. Hence the revelation, “And it fuels my addictions/Hanging out in this whirlwind/If you cool my ambitions/I’m gonna cut you out.”
The single, released a month ago, is reinvigorated with Whittingham’s visual direction in spite of showing reverence for some of Allen’s previous looks and set designs from the videos for “LDN” (the puffy dress and sneakers combo) and “22” (the bathroom aesthetic). And with the new single and video for Burna Boy’s latest, “Heaven’s Gate,” also featuring vocals from Allen, this is the most of the once far more pervasive chanteuse than we’ve really seen since 2014. But then, let us not talk about that year. It just triggers thoughts of Ferguson, Robin Williams’ suicide and Woody Allen receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement at the Golden Globe Awards (granted, his oeuvre is impressive).
As the video segues into the appearance of “modern Lily,” all pink-haired eleganza, her resolve to evade the mistakes of her jejunity clearly stem from appreciating it for what it was, but persisting in keeping her distance from the “bad bones.” Hopefully her message spreads to those still refusing to let go of the toxic Aislings in their life for the sake of ill-advised loyalty and sentimentality.
