Poor old EMI. Lily's label won't be making a penny off the thing, though maybe they should be grateful they've made a single penny from the career of a woman with just enough talent to illuminate the inside of an eggshell. Yes, they must be utterly distraught at one of their artists getting such massive publicity for the no financial outlay by themselves whatsoever.

Lily wrote on her MySpace blog about the whole affair, blaming Lord Mark Ronson for the whole fuss and claiming that he should have talked over part of the track to discourage people from spreading it (or at least he could have had the decency to make his butler do it for him).

"I had asked him to talk all over it so it wouldn't get ripped, but he didn't. Thanks Mark - for getting me in serious trouble with my record company."

Yeah, thanks Mark, you selfish sod. If Lily loses her recording contract then who will chant sing-song nonsensical nursery rhymes over a dub reggae beat for the nation, you monster? So she may be in hot water (sadly not at boiling point though). Remember, EMI will be FUMING about this! Poor Lily jabbered on...

"I love Britney and I love the song. It wasn't my intention for it to have whizzed round the world like it has. Mark Ronson asked me for something no one had heard to play on his radio show, and Womanizer was the only song I had as an attachment on my Blackberry, and I couldn't get home to send him anything else in time."

Well it's a fine excuse and I'm convinced that there was no way Lily could have provided any other track. Having heard the version I'm suspecting Lily confused the file that said 'Womanizer' on her BlackBerry with the one that said 'Crazy Frog Ringtone.' Except the frog is less annoying and of greater musical worth.

Hey EMI, Lily is worried about her career for God's sake! We all know that the caged bird doesn't sing as beautifully as the free one, so just let her chirrup and don't clip her artistic wings for singing a song that just felt right for her.

Big sigh. It should be pointed out that one of the versions of the song on YouTube was uploaded by Parlophone Records, a subsidiary of... EMI records, and comes complete with links to buy Lily's new album. What could be going on? Surely Lily isn't using her MySpace page to tell lies and shamelessly plug her shitty new album at any cost via a viral marketing programme? Even bigger sigh. No, she's too fine a person to anything like that, honestly.

by Ian McShane