NO SERIOUSLY: Girls Will Be Boys and Boys Will Be Girls, The Kinks’ “Lola” Revisited
When I was a teenager on Long Island, WBAB, the island’s most popular classic rock station, played the Kink’s “Lola” religiously. The song was already twelve or thirteen years old by that time but it had gotten better with age. It was just as fascinating as it had been when it was first released in 1970. And how could it not? It was like a story on The Jerry Springer Show, with the exception that it was presented in a more poetic fashion. It treated the subject of a young man discovering the woman he loves is a man more seriously than Springer would. As a teenager, however, I couldn’t help but focus on the sensational aspect of the story. That’s just what teenagers do.
As an adult, there are many aspects of the song I didn’t pick up on when I was younger. The one that stands out more than any other, every time I hear “Lola,” is the sound and the attack of the opening guitar riff. Ray Davies is striking that guitar just as fiercely as his brother had on the opening guitar riff of “You Really Got Me.” It’s the attack that made the Kinks famous and they still had it in 1970. And rarely do you hear someone attack an acoustic guitar with the same determination they would an electric. Acoustic guitars are usually played to express “beautiful” and “sensitive” moods. 99 times out of 100, they’re meant to sound pretty, especially today when guitars are recorded digitally and so much of the sound is lost in the digital process, leaving us with thin, synthetic shadows of what acoustic guitars used to sound like. Granted, according to Davies, the sound on “Lola” is actually a combination of both an acoustic guitar and a steel guitar (Hinnan, Doug: The Kinks, All Day and All of the Night, 2004, p. 140.), which creates the raw, thick, nasty bite that resonates with the opening chords. Still, it’s an approach you rarely hear when someone is about to sing a ballad of sorts. It’s one of the most infamous openings to any rock ‘n roll song, with the exception of the previously mentioned, “You Really Got Me,” which again, has the attack of a ferocious lion upon a innocent and not-long-to-live gazelle. That’s just one of the everlasting marks the Kinks left on the genre.
The story Davies tells in the song compliments the seedy sound of the two guitars combined perfectly and that’s one of the reasons the song works so well. In “normal” society, a young man most likely wouldn’t meet a woman he would eventually discover is a man. In society’s seedy “underbelly,” however, especially in the late 1960’s, such a situation may very well have been possible. The sound of that guitar sets the stage for the story that is about to come. It’s a perfect introduction and perfectly produced in order to get the proper effect. Unfortunately, the version released in 1979, on the Kinks’ live album, One for the Road, lacks the thickness and seediness of the guitar sound from the original. It’s easy to hear Davies is playing an acoustic guitar only and it’s thin, non-threatening sound turns a brilliant piece of art into a hokey, trivial piece of nostalgia. You can, however, watch and listen to Davies play the steel guitar on the Top of the Pops television show and the sound that helped to make the song famous is there in all its filthy glory.
Finally, there’s the story itself. Like I mentioned previously, as a teenager I focused on the sensational aspect of the story. I giggled every time I heard the song because it seemed like the most outrageous subject a singer could touch upon. When I listen to 
it now, I try to follow the story the best I can from beginning to end, picking up on the changes that happen throughout the tale. At first the narrator is clueless to Lola’s gender. He’s young, naïve and drunk on champagne. He’s simply excited by the fact that a woman is speaking with him. Soon enough he begins to wonder why she is so physically strong and her voice has a masculine ring to it. He temporarily puts away these concerns, however, and drinks more champagne with Lola. She then picks him up, puts him on her knee and asks him to come home with her. At this stage in the game, he’s hammered on booze and enamored with Lola.
Something happens though. There is a change, both musically and lyrically. At the bridge of the song, the narrator suddenly pushes Lola away and runs for the door. Due to his drunkenness, he falls. Before getting up though, his eyes meet Lola’s. Returning to the verse, the narrator expresses his desire for things to remain exactly as they were at the moment their eyes met. He felt a connection. And even though he doesn’t think he can go through with being with Lola, he’d at least like to recognize the moment they shared and acknowledge that it had legitimate sentimental value, regardless of the social pressures instilled in him. He then articulates his discovery of how “mixed up, muddled up, shook up” the world really is, though ironically, he doesn’t include Lola in this sentiment. He doesn’t feel as if she is “mixed up” at all. He knows that Lola is exactly who she wants to be.
Things get a little fuzzy next, as if we, the listeners, are the one’s drunk on champagne. It is unclear what finally happens between the narrator and Lola. The narrator tells us how he “left home just a week before” and had never ever kissed a woman before.” He follows this line by telling us how Lola took him by the hand and said she was going to make him “a man.” Fast forward to the next verse and the narrator finishes his tale by stating:
Well I’m not the world’s most masculine man
But I know what I am I’m glad I’m a man and so is Lola
Basically, what he’s telling us is he is now “a man,” as Lola promised, which means we can only conclude that something did in fact happen between the narrator and Lola. And not only is the narrator “glad” about it, “so is Lola.” By using “is,” the narrator may very well be telling us that the affair may still be going on. Otherwise, what would be the purpose of stating her gladness in the present tense?
“Lola,” like many pop songs written before it (and many written after), is living proof that a story can be told effectively, creatively and dramatically within the confines of only a couple of minutes. The pop song can be the musical equivalent of the short story, in the sense that it does not take on the gigantic scope of a novel (or in musical terms, a symphony) but chooses to tell its song in a curt, yet detailed manner, in which we can learn about characters, their relationships with other characters and the results of their interactions. It even supercedes the folk song in the sense that the folk song usually chooses the ABABAB, etc. song structure to tell its tell, using the verses to tell the plot of the story and the chorus to sing the general theme of the song. The pop song, however, has several different song structures to choose from, though the ABABCAB is the most common. The “C” section, or “bridge” as it is called, is usually when the music takes a 180 degree turn into a different direction. And if the song is written properly, the lyrics usually take a an unexpected twist as well, adding some complexity to the song. What sometimes takes Bob Dylan seven to fourteen verses to tell a story, bands like the Kinks are sometimes able to tell them in far less.
People who looked at this item also looked at…
Related items
loading...
