The tenth post on My Top Tracks
I hated my very conservative school. At age 16 the other pupils all went on to the sixth form except, I think, one other person who left education altogether and me who left to do my A levels elsewhere. I went to the local further education college where things were more relaxed and less reactionary. When I finished my A levels I was elected as President of the Students' Union (SU) and did that full-time for a year. The Students' Union ran a bar in a portacabin out the back of the college. In the bar was a jukebox. One of the most played songs on that jukebox was 'Lola' by the Kinks. I seem to remember Debbie Lysaght was one of those who played it most. She was a student at the college and drank and played pool in the bar. She was on the SU executive committee where she took on the role of a sort of lieutenant and enforcer for me, something I really appreciated, a tiny hint of tomboy to her in manner if not appearance.
Another favourite member on the SU committee for me was Lisa Markwell, very trendy and friendly to me despite my untrendy hippy appearance. We walked through High Wycombe together once on some Students' Union mission, she with short teased-up hair and me in a long coat and long curtain hair, and she said, smiling, that anyone looking at us from behind would think she was the boy and I was the girl. Lisa came into the office one day and begged me to approve her booking a band who were unknown at the time but who she swore were going to be big. It would have been an unusually big expense to book them for our small hall but her imploring eyes and sureness that the group were going to be something special won me over. They were Culture Club. Unfortunately, they got big very quickly, before their gig with us came up, and were after bigger venues then. They pretended their guitars had been stolen to avoid our booking. A few months later Culture Club were no. 1 in the charts with Karma Chameleon. Lisa went on to become, amongst other things, editor of the Independent on Sunday.
When I was elected President I was still 17 for the first month of my term of office and was not allowed to drink in the bar I was in charge of. I did drink in it, of course. Members of the Windsor chapter of the Hells Angels used to use the bar but this put students off going in. So when I was President we boldly decided to enforce a students-only entrance policy and turn the Angels away. They didn't take it well. The following day they surrounded the bar, revving their engines, and hurling bricks at it. We locked the doors and hunkered down until the bombardment subsided and we heard their departing bikes recede into the distance.
It was in this bar that I came to love The Kinks. They came from Muswell Hill in London. When my parents got married in 1960 aged 21 and 22 they lived in Muswell Hill and I realise that Ray Davies of the Kinks must have lived there then aged about 16. The bass player and drummer would have been about the same age, and lead guitarist Dave Davies, Ray's younger brother, would have been 13. It was a less gentrified area then, and the Davies family were working class, something that marked Ray's songwriting. They were poor working class at that, with 8 children to feed. Muswell Hill was less populated than today and I wonder if my parents ever passed the Davies boys in the street in their pre-Kinks days.
The Kinks first entered the pop charts with good riff driven rock songs like 'You Really Got Me' and 'All Day and All of the Night', very simple songs about girls: "Girl, you really got me goin', You got me so I don't know what I'm doin', Yeah, you really got me now, You got me so I can't sleep at night" and "I'm not content to be with you in the daytime Girl, I want to be with you all of the time, The only time I feel all right is by your side Girl, I want to be with you all of the time, All day and all of the night". The riffs were powerful and the Kinks were a rough rock alternative to the Beatles, and with an edgy name.
Relations in the band were not always harmonious. After finishing playing You Really Got Me in Cardiff in 1965, the first song of the set, a fight broke out between the drummer Mick Avory and Dave Davies in which Avory hit Davies on the head with his hi-hat stand, knocking him unconscious and leading to Davies receiving 18 stitches in hospital. Avory fled the scene thinking he may have inflicted an even worse injury, later telling the police it had all just been part of their stage act.
Ray Davies was not like everybody else. For a start, a brilliant songwriter. He went on to write more gentle observational songs, often satirical and ironic, with social commentary, about the upper classes, from a working-class perspective, very much about British or English life, and sociological. These had a folk and music hall feel to them. 'Waterloo Sunset' is a lovely song about London at the river featuring two lovers at Waterloo, crossing the river and gazing at the sunset. 'Sunny Afternoon' is about a rich aristocrat bemoaning high rates of tax, like George Harrison's Taxman but with Davies distancing himself from the moan by putting the words in the mouth of an unappealing toff. 'A Well Respected Man' is also a dig at the upper classes, a bit like another of my favourites the Jam's 'Mr Clean', but not exactly the same (The Jam also covered the Kinks' song 'David Watts'). 'Dedicated Follower of Fashion' is about what it sounds it's about, except in one line the subject "pulls his frilly nylon panties up tight"; which takes us to Lola.
'Lola' was a return in 1970 to straight rock, after these more twee songs. I've always preferred their rock songs. I was 6 in 1970 but probably living in Zambia or just back to Britain and too young, I think, to have registered it then (even if I have often been a bit precocious, including about finding music). It was in the SU bar when I really grew to know the song. Lola is about a man who dresses as a woman. The narrator meets Lola in a bar, believes her to be a beautiful woman and is quite bowled over by her. The bar is in Soho, a place I was a regular visitor to in the late 1970s as a teenager, then lots of sex shops, peep shows, sex cinemas, and sex clubs. But it becomes apparent that Lola is a man dressed in women's clothes. This does not seem to affect the singer's affection for her. It's a song about trans identity long before we started to obsess and divide ourselves about this issue. It was released at a time when homosexuality was illegal, a track about a man feeling desire for another man, albeit one dressed as a woman. Lola is portrayed sympathetically and there is no negative judgment made of her. There is the line "But I know what I am and I'm glad I'm a man, And so is Lola" which could be seen as anti-trans, saying Lola is basically a man and happy that way. But in the context of the song I think it would be wrong to read this line in an anti-trans way. Lola is portrayed as what was then called a 'cross-dresser' a man who enjoys being a woman, so non-binary and trans, and that is seen as fine. It's the way the narrator says he wants it to be, even desirable and Lola remains an object of affection even when the singer realises she is biologically a man. The song seems to be about either an encounter Davies had or his manager did. Two years later Lou Reed also touched on transgender issues in Walk on the Wild Side. The Kinks song is another with a great guitar riff (the Kinks were good at these) and a catchy chorus. I dare you to try not to at least hum along with it.
The Kinks songs are not explicitly political or left-wing but they sound left-wing to me. They're often satires of the rich, of the sort that come from a working-class perspective, like Davies'. There's a lot of class inequality covered at least indirectly, and critiques of consumerism pop up. Davies has said he is a socialist and his politics, as he explains them and sings it, are sophisticated and open-mindedly left, with an anarchist or libertarian angle.
The Kinks were a musicians' band as well as fans' band. Many musicians praised what the group did, their innovations on the music scene, their influence, and covered their songs. I remember hearing that Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders was a big admirer of The Kinks and I liked that the Pretenders covered their songs, then discovering she had taken it one step further and actually got together with Ray Davies. There's a great musical about the Kinks, that I went to see recently. It's called Sunny Afternoon. Musicals are not really my thing and for the first 15 minutes or so I wasn't sure about it. But I got more and more into the show. There's their great music and some of the story of The Kinks. I had just known the songs really at this point. Much of their fascinating tale I didn't know about until I saw the musical.
Lyrics
I met her in a club down in old Soho
Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola
C-O-L-A, Cola
She walked up to me and she asked me to dance
I asked her her name and in a dark brown voice, she said, "Lola"
L-O-L-A, Lola Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Well, I'm not the world's most physical guy
But when she squeezed me tight, she nearly broke my spine
Oh, my Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Well, I'm not dumb, but I can't understand
Why she walks like a woman and talks like a man
Oh, my Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Well, we drank champagne and danced all night
Under electric candlelight
She picked me up and sat me on her knee
She said, "Little boy, won't you come home with me?"
Well, I'm not the world's most passionate guy
But when I looked in her eyes, well, I almost fell for my Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
I pushed her away
I walked to the door
I fell to the floor
I got down on my knees
Well, I looked at her, and she at me
Well, that's the way that I want it to stay
And I always want it to be that way for my Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
Except for Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Well, I'd left home just a week before
And I'd never, ever kissed a woman before
Lola smiled and took me by the hand
She said, "Little boy, gonna make you a man"
Well I'm not the world's most masculine man
But I know what I am and I'm glad I'm a man
And so is Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola
Lola