Mama Days and the Album That Chose Violence

Mama Days giving Lily Allen a pep talk right before recording the now-infamous Madeline track

When Lily Allen began work on West End Girl, she didn’t just bring songs into the studio, she brought heartbreak, receipts, and a general sense that someone needed to keep things from getting too polite. Enter Daisy, then operating under her most fearsome alias yet: Mama Days.

Mama Days immediately clocked the project for what it was: not a breakup album, but a public service announcement. Her first contribution wasn’t musical at all. It was a rule, written in Sharpie on a Post-it and slapped onto the mixing board:

“No metaphors if the truth is funnier.”

Mama Days with singer songwriter and producer Chloe Angelides and Lily Allen in a writing session for West End Girl

Whenever Lily tried to soften a lyric, a little poetic distance here, a vague line there, Mama Days would audibly clear her throat. Sessions were paused. Tea was poured. A look was given. More than once she declared, “That line is letting him off easy,” and demanded a rewrite on the spot.

During the recording of the title track, Mama Days insisted the Brooklyn brownstone be treated like a character in the album. “That house knows things,” she reportedly said. “Sing like the walls are testifying.” No one argued.

Mama Days also took it upon herself to manage studio morale. This included confiscating phones during emotional takes (“No texting your ex mid-chorus”), banning the word “closure,” and once ordering a pizza solely so she could announce, “Even this has more commitment than that man.”

Mama Days keeping her "eye" on Jimmy Fallon during an interview he did with Lily Allen "I never liked that babbling idiot" she said later

After the album dropped and the internet predictably caught fire, Mama Days was delighted. She followed the discourse like a sport. Think pieces, Reddit threads, podcast meltdowns, all of it. She reportedly referred to the backlash as “the encore.”

When asked if she thought West End Girl was too revealing, Mama Days laughed and said, “If you didn’t want to be in the album, you should’ve behaved better.”

Mama Days and Lily Allen proud of the Album release.

By the time the dust settled, Mama Days quietly stepped back into legend, leaving behind an album that refused to blink, flinch, or apologize.

And somewhere, taped above a studio door, the Sharpie note still remains:

No metaphors. No mercy.