Lola by The Kinks revealed

I had a small revelation while listening to the radio recently.

One of the original British Invasion groups that grew and
evolved along with The Beatles, although never equalling
their success, was The Kinks.

They also held together as a group much better than some of
the others, such as The Yardbirds and The Hollies, who lost
their lead people and became history even as Jeff Beck,
Eric Clapton and Graham Nash went on to further fame and
fortune.

In the early 70s, The Kinks had a hit with a song rock critic
and historian the late Greg Shaw thought was the best pop
record in history. That may be going a little too far, and
I don't know if he retained that opinion through the past
30 years when he was producing new generations of garage
rock bands such as The Flaming Groovies and putting out their
songs on his Bomp Records, but anyway . . .

The song of course is "Lola." I recall that when it came out
all the rock critics oohed and ahhed over the "ambiguous"
meaning of the final line -- which of course reflected the
theme of the song with its ambiguity regarding sexual/gender
orientation.

The story of a young man who goes to a club in old Soho "where
they drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola . . ."

He's asked to dance by Lola and falls in love with her. But
we have broad hints that Lola is a transsexual "I couldn't
understand why she walked like a woman but talked like a
man."

Of course, there's also a hint that the young man
singing the song is also more confused than he lets on:

"Well I'd left home just a week before
And I'd never ever kissed a woman before."

What kind of young man has never kissed a woman before?
Maybe Ray Davies was just referencing older notions
of small town morality -- that he'd never kissed a
woman because he was too morally upright and so were all the
girls in his hometown, but that seems highly unlikely
and old-fashioned even for as long ago as 1971.

"I'm not the world's most passionate man"

Yeah, no kidding. Or he has some physical problem he
needs to see a doctor about.

Or maybe he's already kissed men but was experimenting
with Lola whom he originally saw as a woman -- or it's a
gay club and he knew going in that's what he wanted.

Now, in 2005, the final line no longer seems ambivalent
at all. We were just too naive back then to understand.
Maybe Ray Davies did, since he'd spent years partying
among the most cutting edge people in the world.

"But I know what I am
And I'm glad I'm a man

-- and so is Lola."

In 1971, we wondered at the obviously deliberate unclarity
of this.

Is Lola glad he's a man?

Or is Lola also a man?

In 2005, the answer is not unclear at all.

It's both.

Lola is glad the singer is man (Lola obviously doesn't want
sex with anyone female.)

And Lola is a man, (at least physically).


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