Opening up a relationship is a negotiation—a labyrinthine, unpredictable, and especially horny one. Communicate what you need, listen to what they want, and work out all of the rules before—ideally—writing them down, so you can relay them to the world in a song when it all goes horribly wrong.

Yes, I’m talking about Lily Allen , whose new album, West End Girl , has set the internet alight with its powerful evisceration of an open marriage (her own?) gone wrong. “We had an arrangement,” the 40-year-old sings in “Madeline,” the now-viral track in which Allen addresses the other woman in a relationship. “Be discreet and don’t be blatant / there had to be payment / it had to be with strangers.”

Allen has said the album was inspired by her four-year marriage to Stranger Things star Da

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