NYT, Dec. 2, 2020
Ray Davies on 50 Years of ‘Lola’
Two years before an official Gay Pride rally arrived in the United
Kingdom, the Kinks released one of pop’s first big hits with an L.G.B.T.
theme.
By Jim Farber
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.”
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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.”
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