the kinks - lola

so i heard this on the radio the other day as part of a song contest & they played the 'coca-cola' version, was i right to be somewhat giddy about that? or is that in fact totally common?

I'm not sure.

I think "Cherry Cola" is a better line anyway.

?? you gotta be kidding me

co-ca co-la, l-o-l-a lola

cherry cola is really awkward by comparison

no.

makes more sense in context...

Coca Cola is more a definite recogniseable taste.

Cherry Cola, you could convince yourself it's just a very fruity champagne, maybe.

LOLA POLL-A

You'd have to be pretty drunk to think that either Coca Cola or cherry cola tasted like champagne. Or used to pretty bad champagne.

I know people say that this song is ambiguous, but I don't hear the ambiguity. You'd really have to twist the lyrics to get them to not mean that Lola's a man. I can sort of understand how people could read some is-he-or-isn't-he? into it and maybe it was written with those readings in mind, but the plot seems pretty clear and the song doesn't make as much sense to me otherwise. It's just that the narrator is being a bit dense, first in realizing that Lola's a man in drag, then in realizing that he's OK with that.

Lola is both:

1. a man

2. glad the narrator is a man

everybody wins!

That works.

Fifty years of Lola! Such a goddamn perfect pop song.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/01/arts/music/kinks-lola-ray-davies.html

lol(a)

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.”

Moby on "Lola".

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/mar/22/moby-honest-playlist-donna-summer-celine-dion

Dave Davies post a reply on Facebook:

Regarding Moby's criticism of our song LOLA in a recent Guardian interview these are the words sent to me and Ray from our dear friend trans icon Jayne County. I am highly insulted that Moby would accuse my brother of being 'unevolved' or transphobic in any way.

Jayne County on what Lola meant to her

Of course, when I first heard the name Lola, it conjured up memories of Marlena Dietrich standing on a stage in a crowded, smokey room singing one of her most famous songs, ‘Lola!’ From the 1930 film ‘The Blue Angel’ ‘I am the naughty Lola all the men know me!’ I always thought that the young lady in the song by The Kinks, had perhaps taken her name from the Dietrich character! And actrashy, dark bar in London’s Soho district would for sure have an ‘ interesting’ array of night time denizens! And a woman with a low voice and the name Lola, would certainly qualify for a possible encounter with either a transvestite or transexual! When I heard the song I was both thrilled and amazed that ‪the Kinks‬ would be singing a song about a trans person and wondered if anyone else had picked up on it!

Who was cool or hip enough to realize what ‪The Kinks‬ we’re singing about! Lola will always be one of those songs that for me ‘broke the ice’ so to speak! A song that breaks down barriers and brings a used to be, hush, hush subject to the forefront and makes it sound perfectly natural to be singing a song about a ‘girl’ named Lola! I don’t think the radio stations picked up on the subject matter but a lot of the fans did and that’s what really matters! ‘Lola’ certainly influenced my song writing and in my song ‘Wonder Woman’ (Are you wondering?) I l bring up ‘Lola’ in the song’s lyrics. “Lola with a passion mark kiss.”

‘Lola’ will always be a very special song to me! With this song, The Kinks projected themselves into the modern world. The REAL world! A world full of all kinds of people! Bisexual, Gay, Trans, not just a world full of straight heterosexuals! ‘Lola’ broke down the doors of narrow mindedness and I will always be grateful and happy that The Kinks gave me this incredible song with such a great story! Being Trans myself this will always be a very special song for me. - Jayne County"

Sent from my iPhone

Regarding Moby's criticism of our song LOLA in a recent Guardian interview these are the words sent to me and Ray from our dear friend trans icon Jayne County. I am highly insulted that Moby would accuse my brother of being 'unevolved' or transphobic in any way.

dave your brother was a brilliant songwriter and also a piece of shit, you don't have to cape for him, if he's not transphobic he can come out and say "trans rights", i don't _think_ he's dead or in a coma. hell for that matter _you_ can say "trans rights", we can always use more allies, _particularly_ in the UK, _particularly_ right now

it's not like ray was _just_ transphobic, this is also the dude who wrote "black messiah", which is a racist song, the dude who also threw in some anti-semitism, just for kicks, on "when i turn off the living room light"

trotting out your TRANS FRIEND doesn't make the song not transphobic, and it doesn't make moby wrong for calling out the song for being transphobic. i totally get where jayne is coming from on this and completely respect her take. she's not wrong to talk about what the song meant to her. that's the complicated, painful thing, this music _was_ how i learned to understand transness. we're all products of our times. we all learn what we're taught. there was a time in my life where i did defend "lola", because it was what i had, it was all i had to work with, and i learned to work with it. i'll still defend the raincoats' version of "lola", because it makes the song genderfuck in some really interesting ways. us trans people, we're complicated people. do me and some trans friends of mine sometimes go to karaoke and have a fun time singing "sweet transvestite" with the chorus changed to "i'm just a goddamn faggot", as was the tradition in certain rocky horror fan communities? sure. is that something that's _still_ a tradition at rocky horror live shows? fuck no. does it excuse richard o'brien being transphobic? not at all. rocky horror is iconic and richard's non-binary and the song was a really good influence on a lot of us and a really bad influence on a lot of us. i fucking hated "rocky horror" back in the day, not having actually _seen_ it, because i didn't want to be dr. frank-n-furter. now i've seen it and whatever richard believes about us, it's a great show and very very queer and i woke up half an hour ago in the middle of the night thinking, as i sometimes do, "don't dream it, be it", because goddamn i'm trying to "be it", and if someone thinks that by "be it" i mean an evil cannibal murder and rapist like frank-n-furter is they're fucking idiots. and i'm not going to call you a "fucking idiot" but when moby calls the song "transphobic", he's not wrong.

would i personally call ray davies "unevolved"? no, it was 1970, that was how shit was back then. he was using transphobic stereotypes to make us the butt of a little joke of his, though, something he did a lot, and just because he was _clever_ doesn't make it not a shitty, bigoted thing to do. he was ahead of his time in some ways, and it was 55 fucking years ago. it's nothing _personal_, dave. you're an old white boomer dude, and you did some good shit and some bad shit and i like the good shit and don't like the bad shit and don't particularly know you personally. you shouldn't run the world and i shouldn't run the world and moby shouldn't run the world and jayne shouldn't run the world, and right now it is old white boomer dudes running the world, and it's not about _you_, dave, not about _you_ personally, not even about your brother, i'm just really sick of that shit.

julia serano, who's best-known these days as a writer but is also a musician, wrote a song called "ray", here's the lyrics as quoted from her website:

Ray: i was in a bar in SoMa writing in my laptop when this guy came over, he asked me what i was doing, i looked up somewhat annoyed and said “I’m working on a novel,” normally i’d blow him off, but i had writer’s block, i couldn’t come up with an adequate plot twist, so i let him chat me up, it was an innocuous conversation until he asked me to dance, it was weird, the DJ hadn’t even set up yet, then he placed his hand on my knee, he smiled and suddenly our brief exchange became a little bit creepy. now i’m not dumb but i can’t understand why straight boys always hit on me when it’s so clear that i’m queer. he offered to buy me a drink, i said i was fine nursing my Racer 5 but he came back with champagne, he told me that his name was Ray, he asked me mine and i replied “it doesn’t rhyme with the name of a soda” (but he didn’t get the joke though), he kept pestering me, so i told him what my name is now and what my name used to be. now i’m not dumb but i can’t understand why cis boys are always so surprised to find out that i’m trans. Ray headed for the door and fell to his knees, it was so melodramatic, i almost wanted to laugh, but i know better than that, because you never know when a surprised cis guy might suddenly turn violent. a few weeks after the fact i was writing at the same gay bar when Ray came back, he said he had something for me, i was concerned at first until he handed me a home-burnt CD, he said he wrote a song about me, i asked “does it come with trigger warnings?” but he didn’t get the joke though, as soon as he gave it to me, i got an amazing idea: a new character for my story. and his name was Ray, but i would never assume, he spelled it R-A-Y, because when you assume, you make an ass of yourself, not to mention me, life isn’t a movie, and people aren’t plot twists, please consider this, this is a parody, so please don’t sue me, please write more songs like “waterloo sunset.”

tl;dr - "lola" is transphobic, claims to the contrary by beloved and respected trans elders aside, our own complicated relationships with the song as queer people aside, my opinion that the raincoats' version of it is an all-time banger aside. dave davies wrote some cool songs and is a facebook poster.

i'm going back to sleep.

I can’t speak to Ray Davies’ thoughts or feelings now* or 56 years ago, but the protagonist of the song is not hateful; he’s using the language he has to try and process thrills and emotions and confusion that he’s too young and inarticulate to handle, regardless of what they’re about. I think the ambiguity is good writing, but even if someone reasonably disagrees, it’s hard to make a case that a less ambiguous version would have reached many listeners at all, let alone fixed their hearts and minds. Either way, the character is dazzled and awed by Lola, not mocking her to the listener.

(And in another 50 years, if people are still listening to TH3 iMAG3 OF GOD, they’ll probably take those lyrics as wishy-washy woo-woo.)

* I read his autobio but over three decades ago, and don’t remember much. He very much seems to be retired from public life, though, so if not in a coma there still could well be medical reasons not to emerge and make a public statement. Beyond “responding publicly to dumb shit Moby says is poor mental health practice, because it means you have spent more than 0.9 seconds thinking about some dumb shit Moby said”

Moby's comments came up at Pop Con last weekend. Our trans woman friend came to a similar conclusion, Kate: "I have problems with this song, love it anyway, especially the Raincoats version."

the protagonist of the song is not hateful; he’s using the language he has to try and process thrills and emotions and confusion that he’s too young and inarticulate to handle, regardless of what they’re about.

Also this. Ray Davies' vocal tone (hesitant, slightly anxious) helps too.

I'll leave it to Kate and others to hash out the nuances of Lola, but anytime Moby comes up I think about this story:

https://stereogum.com/1902582/former-friend-of-moby-seeks-credit-for-lending-him-cds-sampled-on-play/news

and it reminds me that Moby is a real asshole, even if he's not wrong all the time.

Moby still doesn’t know what to make of his past relationship with Natalie Portman.

The musician, 60, spoke about his alleged relationship with Portman in an interview with The Times published on Friday, Feb. 20. He claimed in his 2019 memoir, Then It Fell Apart, that he dated the actress in 1999 when he was 33 and she was 18.

Portman denied his claim, saying in 2019, "I was surprised to hear that he characterized the very short time that I knew him as dating because my recollection is a much older man being creepy with me.

lol

the Kenny G of techno

* I read his autobio but over three decades ago, and don’t remember much. He very much seems to be retired from public life, though, so if not in a coma there still could well be medical reasons not to emerge and make a public statement. Beyond “responding publicly to dumb shit Moby says is poor mental health practice, because it means you have spent more than 0.9 seconds thinking about some dumb shit Moby said”

― uploading this content requires perseveration (sic), Monday, March 23, 2026 2:44 AM (five hours ago)

yeah to be clear i don't think ray _needs_ to comment on some fucking cisgender asshole calling one of his songs transphobic in the fucking guardian. this is not really a critically important issue to me right now. i have other things to worry about. i genuinely do mean it when i say that dave, ray, fucking _moby_, _anyone_, standing up for trans rights _right now_ in the UK is way more important than an extremely catchy, arch pop song that ray and dave's band had a #1 hit with more than fifty-five fucking years ago.

i will say doing research, it turns out that dave had substantial input into the music of "lola", which i _didn't_ know, so it makes sense that dave would _want_ to defend it. i'm absolutely not going to argue that "lola" isn't an all-time banger of a song on a musical level. it is. lola as a song, dave and ray as songwriters, can stand on their own merits. "lola" doesn't _need_ defending, particularly not against the likes of moby. dave's response is completely unnecessary, and pulling the "well MY TRANS FRIEND" card is _utterly_ tone-deaf. memo to, like, everyone - stop doing the "my x friend says it's ok" defense. it's tokenism at its worst, and is worse than just saying nothing.

I'll leave it to Kate and others to hash out the nuances of Lola

― Cow_Art

i'll take that as an invitation. :) my issue with "lola" isn't the _narrator_, it's the implicit authorial voice. ray davies is a satirist. his songs often _aren't_ written to be read literally. "a well-respected man" isn't a fucking encomium, y'know? furthermore, i think it's possible to trace ray's development as a songwriter from songs like "a well-respected man" and "dedicated follower of fashion", which are third-person satirical critiques somewhat in the vein of bob dylan, to the style he starts using around '67, which is to do character portraits, to talk about characters _distinct_ from him in the voice of those characters. whether it's intended or no, a lot of these times these characters are portrayed as being ignorant or gullible. i'd use as examples the narrators of "complicated life" and "david watts". ray's fairly direct in "david watts", in fact - "i am a dull and simple lad / cannot tell water from champagne"

well,whether it's intentional or not, ray davies has a _style_. i do, in my head, think of the narrator of "lola" as being basically interchangeable with the narrator of "david watts", a couple years on. i didn't know david watts was a real person! wikipedia:

As Ray Davies confirmed in The Kinks: The Official Biography by Savage, "David Watts is a real person. He was a concert promoter in Rutland." He goes on to relate how the real Watts was gay and demonstrated an obvious romantic interest in his brother Dave Davies. In this light, lines such as "he is so gay and fancy free" and "all the girls in the neighbourhood try to go out with David Watts ... but can't succeed" provide a second level of interpretation based on this ironic in-joke.[7]

i don't think ray is necessarily being deliberately condescending, but a lot of people in '67 wouldn't have been in on the joke. nowadays someone who's going to listen to david watts is probably more likely to be in on that particular joke. intentional or no, there is a sort of "cool factor" in these lyrics, a sort of "yeah but do you know what this song is _really_ about" flavour to it. it's got a real "laugh-in making a fire island joke in 1970" vibe to it (which laugh-in did, in fact, do).

and it's not that the song is _about_ david watts being gay! it's, well, a "second level of interpretation"... the song works perfectly well _without_ that subtext. this is a song about a boy with poor self-esteem who idolizes and worships this other boy in his class. the second level _does_ enrich the song psychologically, it's not just "ha-ha david watts is GAY", because it adds this layer of the narrator's having what we might now call a "parasocial" relationship with watts, having this idealized version of how awesome life must be for an awesome popular guy like david watts. well, i was never a closeted gay boy exactly, but the overall impression i get is that being a closeted gay boy in the 60s was not particularly awesome. it kind of sucks. so whether or not the narrator of the song is "a dull and simple lad", ray _does_ definitely portray the narrator as being ignorant about david watts's queerness. which is a big part of why i draw a through-line from "david watts" to "lola".

re: the background of the song lola, again from wikipedia:

Drummer Mick Avory has offered an alternative explanation for the song's lyrics, claiming that "Lola" was partially inspired by Avory's frequenting of certain bars in West London.[12] Avory said:

We used to know this character called Michael McGrath. He used to hound the group a bit, because being called The Kinks did attract these sorts of people. He used to come down to Top of the Pops, and he was publicist for John Stephen's shop in Carnaby Street. He used to have this place in Earl's Court, and he used to invite me to all these drag queen acts and transsexual pubs. They were like secret clubs. And that's where Ray (Davies) got the idea for 'Lola'. When he was invited too, he wrote it while I was getting drunk.[9]

Ray Davies claimed to have done "a bit of research with drag queens" for the song's lyrics.[13] He has denied claims that the song was written about a date between himself and Candy Darling – Davies contends the two only went out to dinner together and that he had known the whole time that Darling was transgender.[9]

so since i'm doing nuance here i will point out that even though today, there's a clear and distinct difference between "drag" and gender identity, in a historical context these things were much more fluid. so i'm not going to knock ray for saying that he did "a bit of research with drag queens", even if i _am_ curious as to the exact nature of said "research". (that's strictly a joke - i'm not allowing myself the luxury of subtext here. i have no reason to believe that ray davies himself was anything other than straight.)

well, i'm finding while doing research that ray and dave's songs were much more based in lived experience than i'd imagined. which is probably one of the reasons i find ray's lyrics so exceptionally good! he's not writing about abstractions here. whether it's mick avory going to tranny bars or ray davies platonically having dinner with candy darling, "lola" isn't _entirely_ a caricature. i don't think the intent _was_ to be mean-spirited towards lola.

i do think, though, that the song is mean-spirited towards the _narrator_, who's portrayed as being sort of, well, a "dull and simple lad" who "cannot tell water from champagne". those lyrics are from "David Watts", but that latter line is definitely echoed by the intro of "lola": "I I met her in a club down in old Soho Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola". the narrator of "lola" says he's "not dumb", but ray goes out of his way to _write_ him as ignorant.

genius's annotation on this line:

Additionally, the champagne that tastes like Coca Cola already refers to things that seem like one thing but are in fact something different and new. This could foreshadow the singer learning that Lola is not what our narrator perceives her to be.

i figure now is the time that i should bring up The One Joke. that's what we call it in certain parts of the transfem community, because it's the only joke anybody ever tells about us. the "joke" is that we look like women but we're _not_. that's the whole _point_ of that last line, "i'm glad i'm a man / and so is Lola". it's very clever. ray davies is a very clever man. he's not dull and simple. he can tell water from champagne. my issue with "the joke" isn't not a question of whether or not it's _funny_, it's that it's that in my case at least, it's not actually _true_, whether or not my voice is "dark brown" like Coca-Cola (it's not - it's white. very, very white.)

i don't know whether dave davies remembers this or not, but i do greatly enjoy the clip of him playing "death of a clown" on top of the pops - one of the few 60s clips of that show to survive, actually. the announcer says "let's welcome Ray Davies!" to which Dave shouts back - TOTP did live vocals, his mike was turned on - "DAVE DAVIES! Did that on purpose, didn't you?" it's kinda worse, honestly, that the announcer _didn't_ do that on purpose. dave is his own man, he's not "ray davies' kid brother", and he deserves to be recognized as his own man. and it sucks when people don't see him for who he is.

the thing is, if you're not dull and simple - and i don't get the impression _any_ of the kinks are dull or simple - it's disengenuous to play dumb. and it's playing dumb, i think, to treat the narrator of "lola" as some fucking ignorant yokel who doesn't know what he's doing, walking into a soho club and chatting up the clockiest girl in the room. you know, maybe the narrator of the song _isn't_ dumb. maybe he's a _better_ and more _honest_ person than ray davies, the songwriter. because when the narrator says "i glad i'm a man and so is lola" - well, "dumb" or no, the narrator is fairly direct in his speech. he doesn't use _wordplay_. he's saying that lola is glad the narrator's a man, nothing more. any suggestion that _lola_ is also a man exists entirely in the heads of the songwriter and the audience. we're in on something the narrator isn't. _we_ know the difference between champagne and coca-cola.

interesting little side note i learned researching - the 2014 "super deluxe" version of "lola versus powerman and the moneygoround" has a different version - recorded may 2, 1970, which i note mostly because i busted my ass to figure that out - where ray sings "...and it tastes just like Coca-Cola - I can't stand Coca-Cola". that's a minor point but we're doing _nuance_ here motherfuckers.

anyway, to repeat part of that mick avory quote above:

He used to hound the group a bit, because being called The Kinks did attract these sorts of people.

well, mick didn't come up with the name of the band, so he gets a pass on his use of the obfuscatory passive voice, but it's not like the band being called the kinks was just _happenstance_. i can't find the exact cite offhand, but early on in their career the kinks were asked the obvious question "where did you get your name", and they gave the obvious answer: "we call ourselves the kinks because we're kinky". whether or not "kinky" back then literally meant "whips and chains", the way the connotation is now, doesn't matter. "leather is so kinky," patrick macnee exclaims in "kinky boots", the novelty single he recorded with honor blackman around the time the kinks were getting formed. "venus in furs" it isn't, but "kinky" was still "kinky", even back in 1964.

when ray davies went to dinner with candy darling, he _knew_ she was trans. it's important for him to make that clear, it _matters_ to him. why? who gives a fuck? no, i don't think ray davies ever sucked a girl's dick, but more importantly i don't think it makes _any difference whatsoever_, just like it makes no difference to me what dedicated followers of fashion wear when they're at home. how does ray davies knowing candy darling was trans make it _not_ a date? i'm a woman and i like men. i don't like my men dull, but if it's "simple" for a man to treat me as a woman, then i guess i do want a guy who's simple, at least in that way. i don't mind living a complicated life, but i try to avoid overcomplicating it if i possibly can. "trans women", we used to say, "are women". (now we just say "trans rights" instead, because not all trans people are trans women.)

maybe lola is a man. maybe she's not. she is who she _says_ she is, is the point. she deserves to be taken at her word. and she deserves to be able to speak for herself. _we_ deserve to be able to speak for _ourselves_. that's _why_ what jayne county says is important - she's a woman speaking for herself. i can imagine jayne hearing ray singing "i'm glad i'm a man and so is lola" and saying to herself, "sure, i'm a man - man enough to be a woman!" "man enough to be a woman" isn't an all-time great song like "lola" is, it doesn't have an all-time great melody the way "lola" does, but it's HER FUCKING SONG. sing on, sister. i'm listening.

excellent final point - i know the part of the song that will always mean the most to me:

girls will be boys and boys will be girls
it's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
Except for Lola

i'd love it have it all figured out like Lola confidently appears to.

that's always been my interpretation of the song. the narrator is jealous of Lola for being truly free. it's a common theme in a lot of the Kinks' music.

this ambivalent attitude, this mixture of envy and contempt, is present in both the songs about unusual, peculiar characters like Lola (although I don't here that much contempt in Lola) and also in his songs about normies (who are too stupid and incurious to suffer the way a sensitive soul like Ray does - plastic people feel no pain!), I feel like Ray sees himself as being in the excruciating position of being neither a nonconformist or a normie, but some uncomfortable mixture of the two (Soap Opera in particular feels like it's digging down into this)

and i don't get the impression _any_ of the kinks are dull or simple

I hope he never reads this but having seen an interview with Mick Avory I'm not sure this statement necessarily holds water.

xp It seems to me the opposite, that when Ray explores unusual misfit characters, there's often the sense that he's exalting them, that what makes them different and unable to fit in is also what makes them special.

That is the impression I have always gotten (xp)

Whether unfairly or not I think a "dull and simple lad" is exactly how the Davies brothers viewed Mick Avory.

Guessing that's how they saw everybody else in the band, Pete Quaife excepted.

I do agree with Kate that the song is mocking the narrator for not being worldly, not knowing what kinda bar he's stepped foot in, not understanding his own sexuality. And that is a little cruel, but I think the way the song revs up, the mounting joy as he comes to these realisations, turns him progressively more sympathetic - he's finding all this stuff out for the first time and it's such an unexpected glory.

i never heard it as mocking. i think for me what i like about Kinks songs is they're like short stories, miniature worlds, and often the ambiguity is part of the appeal. even when negative or uncomfortable emotions are expressed, they always seem to belong to the characters of the world, not the song's human writer Raymond Douglas Davies. i pretty much have spent zero time wondering about what Ray Davies is like as a person or whether he thinks he's "better" than Plastic Man or "feels contempt" for Walter

and i'm not trying to discourage discussion, i think it's interesting, i'm just always surprised by the conviction people bring to some of these observations when my impressions are so different

All of this makes me want to hear Billy Joel in his 70s mode do something about a Long Island guy in over his head in the Village. (He sets some scenes there but without any character complexity or libido.)

great discussion. all I gotta add is that this song was 100% a gateway to me being way more comfortable with my bisexuality while I was a high school kid in the early 80s. so although I agree with Kate the DD quoting Jayne is a bad look, I definitely empathize with what Jayne is saying there. And I remember to this day the moment when one of my mom's hippie friends was like "you know what this song is about, yeah?"

*that* DD quoting etc

Yes, DD quoting Jayne is annoying, but he wasn't quoting her to shut down a trans person, but rather a fucking moron.

i pretty much have spent zero time wondering about what Ray Davies is like as a person or whether he thinks he's "better" than Plastic Man or "feels contempt" for Walter

Hmmm, I absolutely agree with you that there's always multiple readings, but I gotta say I find it difficult not to see judgement in songs like "Plastic Man" or "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion". Not flagging that up as a negative, either - irritation is as valid an emotion to bring to a song as anything.

what's really missing in this discussion is how offensive Moby's music is to trans people

I mean it should be offensive to everyone but trans people are a part of everyone

I don't think it's possible to ignore the acidic nature of some of his songs, but like Cattedrale I've never found RD v interesting biographically (quite possibly out of some degree of fear about what I'd find out, tbf) so I related to that post

Hmmm, I absolutely agree with you that there's always multiple readings, but I gotta say I find it difficult not to see judgement in songs like "Plastic Man" or "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion". Not flagging that up as a negative, either - irritation is as valid an emotion to bring to a song as anything.

― a ZX spectrum is haunting Europe (Daniel_Rf), Monday, March 23, 2026 8:51 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

my point is that i interpret these judgments to belong to the character of the narrator of the song, not Ray Davies. perhaps in part because of the delivery, especially in DFoF, which is almost deranged? but even reading back over the lyrics it's mostly descriptive than anything else. which lyrics do you see as expressing irritation in DFoF?

I don't think it's possible to ignore the acidic nature of some of his songs, but like Cattedrale I've never found RD v interesting biographically (quite possibly out of some degree of fear about what I'd find out, tbf

Having read a biography of him a few years back you're right to be afraid!

i'd rather read a biography of ray davies than of moby, who just seems annoying as hell

Prob due to my precise age, I heard "Yoda" before "Lola" and it will forever be the superior song to me

i did too lol

I think there's an ambivalence about a lot of his songs which is what makes them work, where both the subject and the narrator are characters that Ray has created, and it's ambiguous which one of the characters is Ray, or whether both of them are, or neither

hah yes that caused a lot of folks in my generation to assume Lola was a contemporary song, really blew some minds to find out it was the same band that did You Really Got Me

i like ray davies' songs generally but when it comes to this one i'm always gonna rather be listening to "walk on the wild side"

Thanks Kate, that was some damn fine nuancing.

Best to avoid the song he wrote about a crossdresser in one of the late 70s albums, where the husband ends up wearing a dress and the wife smoking a pipe.

my point is that i interpret these judgments to belong to the character of the narrator of the song, not Ray Davies. perhaps in part because of the delivery, especially in DFoF, which is almost deranged? but even reading back over the lyrics it's mostly descriptive than anything else. which lyrics do you see as expressing irritation in DFoF?

All of it? I suppose you could deliver it in an earnest fashion, maybe, but Davies' vocal delivery oozes mockery imo. My perception might also be coloured by the fact that I've read Ray Davies state outright he wrote it to take the piss out of Carnaby Street fashionistas, though yes I know, death of the author and all that.

It's also though that Dfof's narrator doesn't really exist in the way that the narrators of "Lola", "David Watts" and "Do You Remember, Walter" do - he has no characterstics and no relations to anyone else, it's just an omniscient blank narrator. I think you're more likely to assume the narrator stands in for the artist in such cases.

as long as we're talking about our interpretations of "Lola"...

the album itself is a concept LP about a band that struggles for a while, gets a record deal, scores a big hit, and then gets exploited by the industry until they regret getting into the business in the first place. "Lola" does not fit into this story at all, so I've always wondered...is "Lola" supposed to be this band's big hit? I always thought it was supposed to be given its placement on the record, but that's sort of a post-facto interpretation knowing that "Lola" indeed became a massive hit...obviously they knew the song was great but weren't they struggling quite a bit until then? as great as their Pye records period was they didn't exactly have a lot of chart success.

i've never thought about it like that but i like your interpretation

It's one of those concept albums that barely has a concept worthy of the name - like most of them, in fact.

A few years ago the number of albums the Kinks released in the '70s staggered me. Who was buying them?

I guess for me it comes down to whether or not "Apeman" is part of the concept, since that's the other track that doesn't really fit in. You can interpret it as the narrator wanting to be done with capitalist society in general. The fact that sounds very similar to "Lola" is interesting, I'm not sure what to make of that. Maybe there isn't anything to it but the album needing some singles

(xp) *Raises hand*

(xxp) Good point. Gonna listen to S.F. Sorrow now and see how it holds up.

"Apeman" is terrible fwiw

what no

It's one of those concept albums that barely has a concept worthy of the name - like most of them, in fact.

*Harrison Ford voice*

It ain't that kind of concept album, kid

A few years ago the number of albums the Kinks released in the '70s staggered me. Who was buying them?

I was! Probably nobody else. I think I was the only one.

also thought "Apeman" might be the follow up single that flopped, hence why the last track has the line "got to be free to do what I want, say what I like and swear if I want", I thought that might be a reference to the f-bomb dropped in the former

"Apeman" was a hit though.

oh I'm still talking about the album's storyline

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT7M-7Q5XM8

All of this makes me want to hear Billy Joel in his 70s mode do something about a Long Island guy in over his head in the Village. (He sets some scenes there but without any character complexity or libido.)

This reminds me of the reading of “Piano Man” where said Piano Man doesn’t realize he’s playing a gay bar

When I wore a younger man’s clothes indeed

So the prevailing consensus seems to be that this whole mishegas makes Moby look way worse than "Lola" and that seems to make as much sense as anything.

think that was the general take prior to any of this

I liked cbgbs and who was that woman with the big tits who had huge tits and she used to wiggle them around - she was an Andy Warhol actress - she used to@move her tits with muscles like a bodybuilder at Max’s Kansas City

— Dave Davies (@davedavieskinks) January 10, 2021

I'll say that this has been a fascinating couple of days of analysis (even more on bluesky) of a fairly throwaway novelty song which has ended up meaning a lot to many trans & gay people, as usual it's that relationship that's much more interesting than authorial intent, but would note Andrew Hickey's theory that the empathetic imagination present in late 60s Kinks and absent before and after is down to Ray Davis's wife Rasa, who did a lot of uncredited work on lyrics.

that woman with the big tits who had huge tits

By the way, that's not a reference to Ray Davis's wife Rasa, who did a lot of uncredited work on lyrics.

Has that ever been confirmed beyond a theory of Andrew Hickey's now being presumed to be fact

It seems to boil down to 'he wasn't quite as as good after they broke up, so she must have been a co-writer' which seems awfully simplistic

lmao I can't believe that Dave tweet is real

(xp) Yes, I'm skeptical she had anything to do with his lyrics, melodies is another story.

(xp) not sure if that Dave tweet is real, but given that every bio I've ever read of the Kinks goes to great pains to identify the extents to which one Dave Davies is a "raver", guessing it's on the up and up

The Dave tweet also had this follow up

x.com/davedavieskinks/status/1348307021989294081

I don't get the sense that Rasa directly composed with Ray so much as pushed him to be more emotionally complex in his portraits, the way Yoko pushed John toward avant-garde. Or Martin Hannett pushed Joy Division towards minimalism. Or in Hickey's latest episode on Tommy, Kit Lambert and Nik Cohn pushed Townshend. "Well that's good, but what if we..."

i feel like moby's opinion was pretty whatever. it's funny how this blew up. people really hate moby!

PaulTMA at 12:34 24 Mar 26

It seems to boil down to 'he wasn't quite as as good after they broke up, so she must have been a co-writer' which seems awfully simplistic

where can you read that stuff

my impression is that Rasa was involved in the songwriting from 66-69...so, Something Else, VGPS, Arthur, and the stuff in between. there's just something that sounds different about those records, there's a lot of very pretty harmonic stuff going on there that their other records don't have, and since they align pretty closely with Rasa's backing vocals I would not be surprised if they were from her. I don't hear much of it on Lola or Muswell Hillbillies, which are also great records - though "This Time Tomorrow" at least has that quality.

don't think this really explains why Ray dropped off so hard after '71 - Rasa leaving him was probably part of it (even if not necessarily for songwriting reasons) - he just seemed real cynical and burned out

I could quote it perhaps if it could be found anywhere accessible

Every Andrew Hickey episode has a transcript version:

same. And she was apparently actually more up-to-date with the music in the charts than any of the band — while they were out on the road, she would stay at home and listen to the radio and make note of what was charting and why.

All this started to seem like a lot of circumstantial evidence that Rasa was possibly far more involved in the creation of the music than she gets credit for — and given that she was never credited for her vocal parts on any Kinks records, was it too unbelievable that she might have contributed to the songwriting without credit?

But then I found the other interview with Rasa I’m aware of, a short sidebar piece I’ll link in the liner notes, and I’m going to quote that here:

“Rasa, however, would sometimes take a very active role during the writing of the songs, many of which were written in the family home, even on occasion adding to the lyrics. She suggested the words “In the summertime” to ‘Sunny Afternoon’, it is claimed. She now says, “I would make suggestions for a backing melody, sing along while Ray was playing the song(s) on the piano; at times I would add a lyric line or word(s). It was rewarding for me and was a major part of our life.”

That was enough for me to become convinced that Rasa was a proper collaborator with Ray. I laid all this out in a blog post, being very careful how I phrased what I thought — that while Ray Davies was probably the principal author of the songs credited to him (and to be clear, that is definitely what I think — there’s a stylistic continuity throughout his work that makes it very clear that the same man did the bulk of the work on all of it), the songs were the work of a writing partnership.

As I said in that post “But even if Rasa only contributed ten percent, that seems likely to me to have been the ten percent that pulled those songs up to greatness. Even if all she did was pull Ray back from his more excessive instincts, perhaps cause him to show a little more compassion in his more satirical works (and the thing that’s most notable about his post-Rasa songwriting is how much less compassionate it is), suggest a melodic line should go up instead of down at the end of a verse, that kind of thing… the cumulative effect of those sorts of suggestions can be enormous.”

I was just laying out my opinion, not stating anything as a certainty, though I was morally sure that Rasa deserved at least that much credit. And then Rasa commented on the post, saying “Dear Andrew. Your article was so informative and certainly not mischaracterised. Thank you for the ’history’ of my input working with Ray. As I said previously, that time was magical and joyous.”

https://500songs.com/podcast/episode-155-waterloo-sunset-by-the-kinks/

uh that is not exactly what I would call any sort of substantive proof she helped him with lyrics, or anything really

and the thing that’s most notable about his post-Rasa songwriting is how much less compassionate it is

Bit of a bold statement there.

of course it isn't fucking "proof", do you think this is a criminal trial or something, jfc

(xp) Even if that were true there could be all sorts of reasons for that.

I mean it is not exactly a rare thing for a rock band to be great for about a decade, peaking around years 5-8, then gradually becoming less satisfying with some odd great songs here and there

Yeah I don't have much of an opinion either way, everyone was just asking how to read about it so I looked it up. There's more on it on the page probably, Hickey's forte as you might know is not brevity, so maybe I left some stuff out. He also links to an interview that's supposed to confirm things further.

I listened to the Waterloo Sunset ep for the first time a few weeks ago, and Hickey's definitely clear he doesn't have cast-iron proof for it, that it's just a theory he's working up - but it definitely made me consider the Kinks Kanon a little differently after listening to it.

if you think it's all a load of shit unless absolute proof is offered (clearly an impossible thing) then that means you are assuming Ray is telling the truth and Rasa must be lying, and considering how much Ray has massaged his own story over the years, I'm sorry but that's a straightforwardly misogynistic assumption.

“Rasa, however, would sometimes take a very active role during the writing of the songs, many of which were written in the family home, even on occasion adding to the lyrics. She suggested the words “In the summertime” to ‘Sunny Afternoon’, it is claimed. She now says, “I would make suggestions for a backing melody, sing along while Ray was playing the song(s) on the piano; at times I would add a lyric line or word(s). It was rewarding for me and was a major part of our life.”

also, this type of stuff can be super important! I think the whole songwriting thing is usually looked at through a pre-rock lens even still...like what could be written down on sheet music. being in a band, stuff changes in practice or the studio all the time. i think drum parts are songwriting. like what's "a day in the life" without that initial sad, stately drum fill that ringo does? he wrote that. little tweaks to lyrics and arrangements or structure suggested by others makes a huge difference. the whole "author comes down the mountain with two stone tablets that are the song" thing is overrated imo.

maybe it's a holdover of classical music really, like the idea of lone genius composer frantically scribbling down notes by candlelight

Yeah I think you're spot on

I mean it is not exactly a rare thing for a rock band to be great for about a decade, peaking around years 5-8, then gradually becoming less satisfying with some odd great songs here and there

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, March 24, 2026 9:38 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

well the thing is it wasn't gradual at all. Everybody's in Showbiz does have "Celluloid Heroes" and a few other decent tracks but the Preservation shit just flat out sucked as did all those weird concept albums, yeah I know they have some salvageable material but there's a reason those things live in the used bin while copies of their Pye records albums still get snapped up instantly. even when they returned to respectability somewhat with Sleepwalker and Low Budget they were writing simpler songs and ripping off guitar riffs from classic rock, idk where to find it but I saw someone compile a list a while back, arguing that a lot of what Ray did was bordering on plagiarism. either way the more harmonically complex and pretty stuff like "Waterloo Sunset", "Johnny Thunder", "Some Mother's Son" is just completely gone by the 70s, it's not like they attempt it and do it poorly, they just don't have songs like those at all anymore. which certainly suggests to me that Rasa might've been fairly involved in making those tunes special.

and its worth mentioning this stuff happens all the time, "Every Breath You Take" being a fairly primo example, with Sting getting the royalties from the Puff Daddy sample despite the actual content of the sample being a riff Andy Summers came up with on his own

I'm not discounting her contributions or at least the possibility if you read my last post. I think we aren't viewing it in the right way tbh. i didn't really think about the word "gradually" i just wrote that for some reason.

i just think there's a lot of space between "she didn't do anything and ray is a unique special boy genius living in a cave getting songs directing from the mind of god" and "rasa and ray davies were a 50/50 songwriting partnership like lieber & stoller", like...did she play an instrument? (not being a dick i genuinely don't know an the stuff posted doesn't really answer the question.

(xps) Not actually true btw, there's some really good songs on the Preservation albums.

I mean it is not exactly a rare thing for a rock band to be great for about a decade, peaking around years 5-8, then gradually becoming less satisfying with some odd great songs here and there

exactly. correlation is not causation. Ray was married to someone special who helped him write songs and then they got divorced so Ray started sucking is quite a journey tho

Ray was definitely dumbing down for the American market by the late 70s though.

if you think it's all a load of shit unless absolute proof is offered (clearly an impossible thing)

Just to be clear, I'm fairly convinced by Hickey's argument, just wanted to underscore he's not cast-ironing it either. The (excellent, as ever) podcast makes a very strong argument for how Rasa elevated Waterloo Sunset.

like...did she play an instrument? (not being a dick i genuinely don't know an the stuff posted doesn't really answer the question

Nothing about an instrument there but she did a lot of uncredited backing vocals on Kinks records. For those curious it really would be better to read the entire transcript or at least search for mentions of her name - not because I think the evidence is damning but because I do think just reading the stuff I c&p'd is not the whole argument, forgive my kidney stone pain addled brain.

I read this from Hickey's blog as him declaring it is proof she helped

I think that’s as close a statement as we’re likely to get that the Kinks’ biggest hits were actually the result of the songwriting team of Davies and Davies, and not of Ray alone, since nobody seems interested at all in a woman who sang on — and likely co-wrote — some of the biggest hit records of the sixties. Rasa gets mentioned in two sentences in the band’s Wikipedia page, and as far as I can tell has only been interviewed twice — an extensive interview by Johnny Rogan for his biography of Ray, in which he sadly doesn’t seem to have pressed her on her songwriting contributions, and the sidebar above.

sorry about the stones!

i'll also say that even if the suggestions were relatively "small" sometimes those are the things that make songs work, like a great example is i was watching this low budget brian jones doc (slid into some weird conspiracy theory stuff about his death at the end)...anyway some talking head in the film has a great observation (paraphrasing here) that "brian didn't write songs like mick and keith but he would come up with parts that made songs hits" - examples being things like the marimba in "Under My Thumb" or the sitar on "Paint it Black"

exactly, or like drum licks etc. ringo has a million of these

"in which he sadly doesn’t seem to have pressed her on her songwriting contributions"

So if she doesn't actually offer anything about her contributions, then we have to be speculate about them?

haha i need to stop Googling Andrew Hickey stuff this is going to drive me crazy

But even if Rasa only contributed ten percent, that seems likely to me to have been the ten percent that pulled those songs up to greatness. Even if all she did was pull Ray back from his more excessive instincts, perhaps cause him to show a little more compassion in his more satirical works (and the thing that’s most notable about his post-Rasa songwriting is how much less compassionate it is), suggest a melodic line should go up instead of down at the end of a verse, that kind of thing… the cumulative effect of those sorts of suggestions can be enormous.

This is just so crazy to me. Anyway, from here, he's been on this kick for awhile.

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/did-a-teenage-girl-make-the-kinks-great.727708/

right - the claim isn't that she was secretly writing a bunch of Kinks material it's that she was writing some melodies and some of the harmonic components, obviously there's not a lot of evidence either way but if you focus on her (uncredited) backing vocals specifically, there is definitely a sort of melodic sense to them that is missing in the Kinks after 1970 or so and you could argue that is the thing that really put those songs over the top. Obviously it's not rare for bands to get worse after a decade but I've always thought the Pye records era was just fundamentally different in a way you couldn't just explain by saying "Ray fell off"

and yes I admit the Preservation albums have some good songs, all the Kinks albums after Muswell have a few keepers, I think what Rasa might've been doing was elevating the lesser songs into something special

My friend's dad would always tell about how he used to hang out with Hoyt Axton and he gave him some help writing "Joy to the World." He didn't really think he deserved a songwriting credit, but if he was being interviewed for an Axton bio he definitely would have told that story.

woah! that's awesome

Thanks waterdace.

So if she doesn't actually offer anything about her contributions, then we have to be speculate about them?

Well no, Hickey's speculations come from the other interview she gave, i.e. "the sidebar above". Whichever v
blog she spoke to about that is however now set to private, which is a bit dodgy.

Waterface, sorry.

I think especially with one-hit wonders, there's some unrepeatable circumstance or outside influence (something non-professional but just when diddling around making a song gel. Sometimes it happens for a song, a set of songs, maybe a period of time; someone's roommate chiming in.

imo Preservation/Soap Opera/Schoolboys in Disgrace is their artistic peak, Rasa was obviously holding Ray back

this song is obviously the kinks peak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhDWvIHjU6o

The Dave tweet also had this follow up

x.com/davedavieskinks/status/1348307021989294081

― Platinum Penguin Pavilion (soref), Tuesday, March 24, 2026 6:03 AM (two days ago)

ok now i need to hear jayne county's take on geri miller

excellent final point - i know the part of the song that will always mean the most to me:

girls will be boys and boys will be girls
it's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
Except for Lola

i'd love it have it all figured out like Lola confidently appears to.

― My homies buttthole surfers' record sounds like a f (Western® with Bacon Flavor), Monday, March 23, 2026 10:51 AM (three days ago)

lol hate to break it to you but we don't have it all figured out either (though any genderqueer people who _do_ have it all figured out are welcome to contradict me!)

All of this makes me want to hear Billy Joel in his 70s mode do something about a Long Island guy in over his head in the Village. (He sets some scenes there but without any character complexity or libido.)

― Come On, (Eazy), Monday, March 23, 2026 1:41 PM (three days ago)

billy joel? he's the guy who does the songs about lonely guys drinking together and then going home and jerking off alone, right? honestly i kind of assume half the women in his songs are dolls and his protags just don't realize it.

I mean it should be offensive to everyone but trans people are a part of everyone

― frogbs, Monday, March 23, 2026 1:52 PM (three days ago)

i'm not unsympathetic, but damn if the world isn't filled with people making things that have nothing to do with us be all about us somehow. i don't feel i need to be specifically represented at the "why moby sucks" rally, though i do appreciate the spirit of inclusiveness that inspires your invitation.

Prob due to my precise age, I heard "Yoda" before "Lola" and it will forever be the superior song to me

― well damn, Jackie, I can’t control the CIA (flamboyant goon tie included), Monday, March 23, 2026 2:03 PM (three days ago)

fgti otm

i grew up listening to '80s new york radio, i heard a lot of "lola" and "walk on the wild side" and "the low spark of high-heeled boys"... i don't know if that last one had anything to do with the other two, but in my head it did. anyway due to one of those stations i tend to _severely_ overestimate 1972-era traffic's place in the classic rock pantheon.

Thanks Kate, that was some damn fine nuancing.

― Cow_Art, Monday, March 23, 2026 2:15 PM (three days ago)

yw!

anyway moby sucks but i still like "next is the e"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJCFHw2Y5WQ

Matt Pike from Sleep/High on Fire has really strong opinions about his deep hatred for Aerosmith's 'Dude Looks Like a Lady' which is truly an execrable song

Was listening to the Who's Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy in the car today; I hope Moby doesn't set his sights on "I'm a Boy."

or god forbid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHrqEEzagVo

That crossed my mind too.

aren't they kinda making fun of their own scene in that song? 'You're always wearing skin tight pants' etc.

Scott Walker's 'Big Louise' from Scott 3 always seemed to me to be a sympathetic song even if the lyrics are not super obvious

Moby vs. Moulty...

One of the most empathetic pre-1980 songs you'll find on the subject (later covered by Wussy):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44bkhkBYrew

Dude Looks Like A Lady is about Vince Neil which redeems it somewhat

xp rasa deserved cowrite credits of like 10%-20% on at least a half dozen kinks classics. that’s a problem with band/arranger credits all across the history of pop/rock.

the idea that her absence is why 70s kinks are c or d tier is insane. would her casual suggestions to ray have salvaged preservation and schoolboys? and did ray really write that many fewer classics after 71 than lennon or mccartney or van morrison or… not sure who else to compare him to. dylan and jagger/richards fared a bit better but not by much.

if there's a post-71 Kinks album as good as Band on the Run or Veedon Fleece, I'd love to hear it

or Blood on the Tracks or Some Girls for that matter

maybe i will embark on a '70s kinks journey

ok you’re right i was underselling his peers a bit in an eruption of misplaced dudgeon strike all that part

This is fanfic but it would've been nice if Rasa had been there to tell Ray "don't make every part about a male actor about how cool they were, and every part about a female actor about how fragile they were, mix it up a bit!" in "Celluloid Heroes" (a song I nonetheless love).

Interesting to me that he dropped the verse about Marilyn Monroe when the Kinks played the song later on. Maybe he thought, after "Candie in the Wind", it was too much of a cliche.

when lennon and mccartney stopped writing together they both made worse music, john getting stuck in unproductive blind alleys and paul putting out songs which are just a lot of good bits that don't fit together well. they both needed someone to tell them "that's not working" or "that's corny"

Mal Evans used to help them too!

"Candie in the Wind" sounds like some VU/Song for Drella outtake

Candy Darling in the Wind

Candle Says

lool!

when lennon and mccartney stopped writing together they both made worse music, john getting stuck in unproductive blind alleys

― Francis Fuck Coprolalia (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Friday, March 27, 2026 4:34 AM (seven hours ago)

insert tasteless joke

Was listening to the Who's Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy in the car today; I hope Moby doesn't set his sights on "I'm a Boy."

― clemenza, Thursday, March 26, 2026 6:00 PM (yesterday)

oh jeez i'll say lola is definitely transphobic (i think it's "good bad" representation, though, like rocky horror), but no i don't read "i'm a boy" that way as well. honestly i think of "i'm a boy" in the voice of a transmasc kid always being made to wear dresses because they're a "girl". some stuff that gets read as "transphobic" i read the opposite way. for instance there's that blue jam sketch about parents who decide their child is actually a middle-aged man and treat him that way. whatever the intent is, the reason the sketch is horrific is because it's the _parents_ who are making the decisions about what they _think_ their child should be. if a child says "i'm a boy" why would a parent say "no, you have to be a girl"? the way these bigots get everything absolutely backwards is just horrifying to me.

honestly one of my niche special interests is the anti-hippie backlash and the revised narrative boomers started to tell about it. like, if you look at the primary sources, the "straights" didn't hate longhairs because long hair represented opposition to the vietnam war, they hated longhairs because guys with long hair _looked like girls_. a lot of the people at the time knew that and leaned into the genderfuck... some the bands bowie covered on "pin ups", the who and the pretty things and syd's pink floyd. bowie didn't cover them, but you can also hear stuff like the spike drivers' "baby can i wear your clothes".

i'd say "arnold layne" is... i mean it reveals the limits of even words like "transphobic". arnold layne isn't trans, he's just a guy who steals dresses off washing lines and wears them in private. "trans" is kind of a limited framing when you're talking about this stuff. regardless, it certainly takes a dim view of arnold... whatever syd _meant_ by "don't do it again", speaking as someone who used to "crossdress", it's not a stretch to interpret it as referring to layne's crossdressing. which is why i love "have you seen jackie?", the dukes of stratosphear's syd homage, so much, because it's so much more positive and affirming of a message.

god, i've seen people argue seriously that "uncorrected personality traits" is transphobic. people... younger people don't always understand the context. to me it's clearly a satire on the sort of psychiatry that gave rise to transmedicalism, particularly given that this was the guy who also wrote "sometimes i wish i was a pretty girl" and "queen elvis".

honestly of the 60s bands, i think the who were the best when it came to gender (well, excepting the velvets!). i think i've mentioned it before, but my fave song about gender the Who did was "tattoo"... it took me a while to catch on how much of a sly satire on gender essentialism "tattoo" is. after spending the whole song going on about how having a tattoo makes him a man, he casually mentions that "my wife is tattooed too"... well, maybe i'm just that thick lol

This is fanfic but it would've been nice if Rasa had been there to tell Ray "don't make every part about a male actor about how cool they were, and every part about a female actor about how fragile they were, mix it up a bit!" in "Celluloid Heroes" (a song I nonetheless love).

― a ZX spectrum is haunting Europe (Daniel_Rf), Friday, March 27, 2026 3:23 AM (nine hours ago)

i mean at some point my fanfic started being "what if all the rock stars weren't cishet white guys" lol

there are plenty of women who could have done as well as any british public school boy, given the opportunity, which by and large they weren't! that's one of the things that makes me saddest... even though i wouldn't say i was ever a man, i do believe that i had opportunities i wouldn't have had if i was afab. :( boys just get _encouraged_ in ways that girls typically, well, don't.

whatever syd _meant_ by "don't do it again", speaking as someone who used to "crossdress", it's not a stretch to interpret it as referring to layne's crossdressing.

"Now he's caught/ a nasty sort of person"

I actually think you could argue that that part of the song onwards is about how Arnold Layne is viewed by the authorities, who send him to prison after all. "Don't do it again" is the sort of thing a judge or policeman would say.

moby hearing "lola" pop up on spotify and dropping his tea in shock reminds me of that horrible era when twitter kids discovered "baby its cold outside". (not to say it is or isnt problematic, i love all the close reading going on here, but just that i dont believe moby spent more than .0005 seconds thinking about it beyond "people from olden times were not as smart as me, a 2026 guy who has it all figured out")

there are plenty of women who could have done as well as any british public school boy

I don't think Davies had the money/family connections for public school but the rest of what you say U agree with ofc

I agree with, not U (tho presumably u do, u said it)

I don't think Davies had the money/family connections for public school

Never even went to grammar school, unlike the Beatles (Ringo aside). Apparently the Davies family were the family in your neighborhood who you're warned off associating with.

... according to Pete Quaife iirc.

"Arnold Layne"'s insistence that "it takes two to know" also prefigures asexual awareness.

Ray Davies chimes in:

"Who the fuck is Moby?"

*Ray Davies makes no public or verifiable comment

(xpost) That reminds me of something I wrote ages ago, when Eminem mentioned Moby in a song:

"Even the wildly misplaced attack on Moby is hilarious--I don't have strong feelings about Moby one way or the other, but I do know that middle-school kids, who make up a sizeable part of Eminem's core audience, have never even heard of Moby! He may as well have gone after Klaus Voormann or Edgar Froese."

I played that Moby song that samples Twin Peaks for my 15 year old (we were binging TP) and she started clowning it hard.

Moby probably turned a lot of Americans off of electronic music. I blame him for the rise of Nu Metal.

I haven't played them in a while, but I really liked some of those records, specifically Everything Is Wrong, Play, a handful of singles that came after, etc. That's less than 10% of his output though.

I'm in for his ambient meditation music, given away free for all to mellow whoever needs mellowing.

"Who the fuck is Moby?"

― Come On, (Eazy), Friday, March 27, 2026 10:11 PM (yesterday)

anecdotal hearsay comment or no, OT fucking M

somebody told me today they hadn't thought of "The Neverending Story" in decades and I said "Oh, God, I haven't thought of the band Atreyu in decades", and they said... ummm...

"Weh"

i don't know what "weh" means

urbandictionary says "The sound Titans make when they use their power", which doesn't help

“Why is Moby being so rude about this simple song?,” Moby continued. “We’re not transphobic. Why does he have to have a go at us?”

look i make cock-ups like this all the time so i'm not having a go at the NME over it, but i wanted to quote it anyway

Multiple personality Moby would be interesting.

He may as well have gone after Klaus Voormann or Edgar Froese

― clemenza, Saturday, March 28, 2026 10:34 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Eminem randomly taking a shot at Tangerine Dream would be so fucking funny

I'll defend Moby's 1992-1997 output.

you know, i think eminem could come up with a better edgar froese diss than i could

Edgar Froese can blow these…

Phaedra? sounds gay bruh