I must say this is fantastic ! Once again, the thread doesn't disappoint. Thanks to @ARL and @ajsmith for bringing up this interpretation, it makes a lot of sense, and even a lot of meta sense, as today's discussion showed. For the LP story to hold together, and to set tomorrow's track off properly, Lola the fiction hit had to become a real life hit before the album’s release, or the whole concept would've been jeopardized! It’s a daring stunt they attempted, and absolutely incredible they were able to pull it off.
There’s a lot to say about this song, much if which has already been said, and I’m late to the party. Anyway, Ray has given about 4 different versions regarding the inspiration for this song: saying it was something that Avory, Wace, a roadie, and I believe himself experienced. Something I was thinking about last night was how this song fits in with the overall album plot. I guess it’s the protagonist a naive small town boy, hanging out and having an unexpected sexual encounter. But the timeline doesn’t fit because he says “I left home just a week before.” So either the first 5 songs take place within a week, or there is an inconsistency in timeline. Not that it really matters. Although this song is about a sexual encounter, it’s really about innocence: the singer’s, who is apparently an inexperienced virgin, and Lola’s. Just staring into each other’s eyes.
The song is sung in the past tense. So the "I left home just a week before" is relative to however long ago he met Lola at the club. We don't know how long ago he met Lola, though.
Then again, people often play fast and loose with time. "I haven't seen you in ages!" and so on. So you could easily interpret the line to be an exaggeration about how wet behind the ears the narrator is. Not that it matters, as you say. The timeline of The Great Gatsby is thoroughly muddled by F. Scott Fitzgerald but it's still a great novel.
It's a very interesting idea that "Lola" is the hit by the band in the story! As for the song itself, it's long had an iconic role outside the album as a classic, irresistably singable single and was a deserved and much-needed hit for them at the time. It was a Kinks concert staple from then on, and after 50 years of exposure I skip it more often than not, but there's no denying it's a great track.
Another cool thing on the arrangement is the point Dalton’s bass guitar enters the song. After the “dark brown voice” lyric when Lola is spelled out “El Oh El A” , there’s the bass entering the song on those syllables. The bass is the dark brown voice. Pretty clever actually.
Lola Brilliant song. Absolutely brilliant in every conceivable way. I was 5 years old when this was released, so this song has always been there in my life. Like others, there is the issue that it is over-played and the Kinks have such a deep, deep catalog (as we're exploring on this thread after 6 months and counting), that i get a little annoyed when this is the "the song". I just want to to tell those uninitiated folks "yes, it's a friggin' awesome song, but here are another 50 songs of theirs that are on par with Lola". Like I said I get a little annoyed...this isn't the main take away here. If I heard it out in a club or at a house party, I would sing my fool heart out! Love the various discussions about this song's place on the album and the lyrics. It's giving me a different view which is cool. Like the ambiguity of the line "But I know what I am and I'm glad I'm a man. And so is Lola" I always "assumed" it was that Lola was a man. But duh and bad on me for thinking that was the ultimate interpretation. That's why this thread is so great. I think in Mark's write-up, you mentioned that this song may not go over in middle America due to the subject matter...but was it ever banned in the US or anything like that? I don't recall there being any problems with it as most people DID miss the trans identification finale. It's interesting to me how Dave's voice level is on par or maybe higher in the mix with Ray's when they are singing together. Often Ray's voice is more forward, but not in Lola. And the two brothers singing together on this is magical. sigh. Whenever this song comes on in recent years, I always make special note of the lyric "electric candlelight". I can almost see a solitary lightbulb hanging on an ugly cord giving the club a very dark and dank feeling. Those two words create such a picture for me. What a lyricist! And "dark brown voice" has befuddled me. I'm a big Adam Ant fan and in one of his best songs called Zerox there is this lyric: "I may look happy, healthy and clean/A dark brown voice and suit pristine". Adam may have nicked that from the Kinks...who knows? But I always took it that it was a British way (??) to say "deep voice"?
Potential definition of “dark brown voice” here: Kraut's English phonetic blog: The dark brown voice of ... They say it dates to the 1950s (or potentially the mid-40s), but the earliest specific example they give is from the 70s after “Lola” was released. Strangely, they don’t mention “Lola” at all either!
LOLA The obvious stand-out track of the album so far. And, yes, the Kinks were again ahead of their time. Whatever some doubtful sources say, it seems certain that Lola's "deep brown voice" is meant to be masculine. Ray spells it out when he goes on to say "she walked like a woman and talked like a man". And Lola is very probably a transvestite homosexual. Nothing in this club is what it seems. The champagne isn't champagne. The candlelight isn't from a candle. And Lola, despite her name, is not a woman. From here on Ray has an absolute field-day. Role inversion : The woman, Lola, asks Ray, the man, to dance. She then goes on to proposition Ray in no uncertain manner. Intentional non-sequiturs : Lola almost breaks his spine because he isn't physical. So why does Ray sing "BUT when she squeezed me tight"? It should logically be "SO when she squeezed me tight". Same thing with "Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand". Sorry, Ray, but in this situation you are out of your depth and it's pretty dumb even to ask the question. "Girls will be boys and boys will be girls" - EXCEPT for Lola? No, Ray because of Lola. You're now so in love with her that the world no longer seems to be "mixed up muddled up (and) shook up". And at the climax this all leads up to Ray, supposedly not a "passionate guy", falling in love with Lola in the blink of a false eye-lid. Triple interpretation at the end where despite Ray's strange whirlwind romance : Ray is glad he's now a man. Lola is glad Ray is now a man. Ray is glad Lola is a man. And all three are probably true!
I have no idea. I just know in general the US was always funny about that kind of thing. After Queen released the I Want To Break Free single and video, they pretty much disappeared off the US scene, and most folks in the US contend that they didn't make anything worth hearing after The Game. My comment was merely speculation based on historical precedent.
I’m pretty sure if Lola had been banned in the US we’d be stumbling over articles saying just that. So I doubt it. (I mean, we read about Ray having to fly from the US back to the UK to re-record...and the next part of the sentence could be “while ironically, when he returned to the US he found that the song had been banned in it’s entirety!” Which...didn’t happen.)
I suspect that they found the visuals too confronting - maybe hearing about it is more palatable than seeing it.
Lola Absolutely brilliant! That opening guitar grabs you and the lyrics are incredibly clever! Showed the Kinks could still have a big hit!
There's no monopoly on radio in the U.S. like there is/was in some other places so "banning" it would only be possible in the sense of individual local stations (or chains) choosing not to play it. The FCC wouldn't have any real grounds to prevent it from being played on any station that wanted to broadcast it. But I think most people don't pay that much attention to the words of most songs anyway, as you mentioned, plus "Lola" in particular is ambiguous enough that you can take it either way and/or choose to misunderstand it. Even now I've had the lyrics go in one ear and out the other of folks around whom I've played it. It's all just "it's got a good beat and you can dance to it."
Another picked one.... I suppose George and Jimi can Duke it out for the picked intro. Of course Nancy goes crazy on you both picking and strumming in her great, iconic intro.
Yes, the "good beat" can nearly wipe out anything unsavory. I'm sure I didn't quite catch onto Lola's 'kontroversy' until much later into my adulthood. And when I did, it wasn't any issue...in fact, it cracked me up and made me appreciate and respect the creative mind of Sir Davies.
Ray Davies on 50 Years of ‘Lola’ by Jim Farber Dec. 1, 2020 In 1970, homosexual acts were still outlawed in parts of the United Kingdom and would remain so for more than a decade. Yet two years before the nation even had its first official Gay Pride rally, the quintessentially British songwriter Ray Davies of the Kinks wrote “Lola,” a song that embraced a full spectrum of gender nonconformity. “Girls will be boys/and boys will be girls,” he sang, before emphasizing “it’s a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world/except for Lola.” The song shot to No. 2 on the British singles chart, hit the Top 10 in the United States and went all the way to No. 1 in five other countries. The response even took its author by surprise. “I didn’t think the song would be so ahead of its time,” Davies said. “But time has proven it so.” To emphasize the single’s pivotal role, and to celebrate its 50th anniversary, Davies has assembled a sprawling boxed set that adds remixes and outtakes to the album that contained it, “Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One.” The LP, a witty and scathing sendup of the music industry’s exploitation of artists, turned around the fortunes of the commercially flagging Kinks, making so deep an impression on a then 12-year-old Wes Anderson that when he grew up to become a director, he used three songs from it for his 2007 film “The Darjeeling Limited.” “I planned scenes in our movie around ‘This Time Tomorrow’ and ‘Strangers’ specifically,” Anderson wrote in an email. “Sublime songs by a band of brothers, which sort of relates to the movie. Then I made another scene, just in order to do a trilogy out of it” with “Powerman,” he added. In a video call from his home studio in the Highgate area of North London, Davies spoke with his usual wry candor. He has been living there since the pandemic began — though “living is a loose term,” Davies said. “It’s more like being in prison.” But he acknowledged that lockdown has given him time to assemble the boxed set and begin writing a new play based on the Powerman characters, a work that could serve as a half-century-removed “Part Two” to the original. The creation of “Lola Versus Powerman” came at an especially fraught time in Kinks history. They hadn’t had a major hit in four years, a situation exacerbated by the band being banned from touring America. Davies cites their refusal to sign papers to satisfy the unions as one reason. Another had to do with an incident on the TV show “Hullabaloo.” After the camera cut away to a few other guests, it arrived on the Kinks, revealing the drummer Mick Avory and Davies dancing cheek-to-cheek. “Everything we could do to annoy people, we did at the time,” Davies said with a laugh. “Nowadays that would be acceptable. Not then.” Despite the consequence to the band’s career, “the highest accolade is to be banned from America,” he added. The band’s break from touring the U.S. gave Davies the chance to soar creatively, leading to his first concept albums, “The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society” and “Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire).” But with “Lola” he aimed squarely at the charts. For a fresh sound, Davies sought an instrument that would stand out on the radio. He found it in a National resonator guitar, a brand of dobro that has the hard, tinny sound of a banjo. “My dad was a banjo player,” Davies said. “He said, ‘If you want a hit record, you have to get a banjo on it.’ The National guitar was the next best thing.” Next, he searched for an irresistible chorus hook, then road-tested it at home. “I had a 1-year-old child at the time,” Davies said. “She was crawling around singing ‘la la, la la Lola.’ I thought, ‘If she can join in and sing, Kinks fans can do it.’” As for the song’s bold subject matter, many stories have been told over the years about its inspiration. Davies said it came from an encounter at a nightspot in Paris the group frequented called the Castille Club: “One of our crew at the time met this beautiful blonde and he took her back to the hotel. In the morning, he saw the stubble growing on her chin. So, he got a surprise!” Davies said his empathy for Lola stems from growing up with six older sisters. “We used to dress up and have parties at home,” he said. “Men dressed as women. My dad, who is the most macho man you could imagine, used to put on a wig occasionally and dance around and make a fool of himself, which I encouraged. It’s part of the musical hall culture we have over here. It’s more accepted in London.” Davies’ portrayal of Lola, he said, reflects his general approach to character. “When I write songs, I put myself in the part,” he explained. “In ‘Sunny Afternoon’ I wanted to know who this broken-down aristocrat was, and I became him. In Lola’s journey, I did a bit of research with drag queens.” He added, “I admire anyone who can get up and be what they want to be.” He believes the lyrics to the song “passed” among less open listeners because “people only hear a third of the lyrics when they’re playing a song before they make up their mind they like it. They’ll just listen to the catchy parts.” The subject matter also sailed over the heads of the BBC censors, who only balked at the lyrical mention of Coca-Cola, which violated its rule about commercial insertions. In reaction, Davies subbed in “cherry cola” on an alternate version. While gay references had cropped up in pop songs before, “‘Lola’ was the first big hit with an L.G.B.T. theme,” said JD Doyle, a music historian who ran the authoritative radio show “Queer Music Heritage.” “‘Lola’ made history.” According to Davies, “Lola” encouraged other songwriters to explore related territory. “Before he passed away, Lou Reed told me that ‘Lola’ was a big influence on him,” he said. “It was reassuring to him when he did ‘Walk on the Wild Side.’” Later in the ’70s, Davies wrote “Out of the Wardrobe,” about a straight man who likes to cross dress, which first upsets his wife before she comes to enjoy it. Likewise, the narrator in the Kinks’ “On the Outside” encourages the lead character to accept their identity, which Davies now describes as transgender. “It’s somebody going through a tremendous emotional trauma about having to be somebody they know they’re not,” he said. Lola was one of the few likable characters on “Powerman.” Much of the rest of the album — which also features two striking songs penned by Davies’ brother, Dave — was inspired by an onerous record deal that made it difficult for the Kinks to earn money. “It’s an old story of artists getting signed to impossible contracts,” Davies said. “I took it personally.” Ironically, the success of the single and album propelled the Kinks to a new contract and a fresh future. But one song they recorded for the album, “Anytime,” was left off because Davies felt it was “too commercial for its own good.” (The song has a sound and sentiment similar to the Beatles’ “Hey Jude.”) The boxed set features a new version of the track, expanded by a fresh monologue delivered by a mysterious female character addressing a world of isolation and loneliness that reflects life during the pandemic. It’s a subject that has hit Davies particularly hard since one of his older sisters died of the coronavirus earlier this year. “We weren’t able to go to the funeral,” he said. For the boxed set, he conducted a series of interviews with his brother, Dave, with a broader purpose in mind: to spark a reunion of the Kinks, who haven’t been together for 23 years. “I’d like to work with Dave again — if he’ll work with me,” Davies said. “Hopefully this will inspire him to trust me more.” For now, there’s the new play he’s creating that pushes the “Lola Versus Powerman” story forward. “The continuity of my work, and the Kinks’ work, is very important to me,” Davies said. “I write everything with the big picture in mind.”
