Foxes (singer) devised a stage name to differentiate herself from British pop singer Lily Allen. She considered the alias Foxes after a suggestion from a friend, the first song she had written being titled "Like Foxes Do"; her mother then told her that she had a dream the previous night "about these foxes running up our street and they were howling and making these beautiful noises", which she said reminded her of her daughter's music. Allen chose Foxes based on this connection. She began performing gigs as Foxes in London in 2011. Foxes released her debut single, "Youth", in January 2012 on
Amelia Lily over 1 million views. From the age of 13, she began writing songs with her guitar and aspired to be a country singer after being brought up listening to it. She was a figure skater for 6 years during her childhood. She was also working on the tills at a garden centre in Nunthorpe, for £4.90 an hour, which she "absolutely hated". Lily declared in an interview for "The Sun" that she suffered bullying for five years at a previous school, saying she "had no friends", and "used to come home crying all the time". The newspaper reported that bullies