10 Songs is a weekly list of ten songs that happen to be on my mind at the moment. The lists are usually dominated by songs played on the previous Sunday night's edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. The idea was inspired by Don Valentine of the essential blog I Don't Hear A Single
This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1330
THE KINKS: Lola
The Kinks' 1970 hit "Lola" reentered the public discussion in March. Gee...thanks, Moby.
As easy as it would be to rag on Moby for completely misunderstanding "Lola" and misinterpreting the song as some kind of jokey anti-LGBTQ+ embarrassment, I'll give Moby an eensy bit of benefit of doubt. I can see how someone could read the lyrics, reflect on the song's tale of a man besotted by an encounter with Lola, a presumed woman who (it's implied) turns out to be a male transvestite, but the besotted bloke remains in love with Lola nonetheless. He's glad he's a man, and so is Lola. I suppose one could conceivably hear snark or scorn in the narrative.
I don't hear it. And I don't think it's there.
Excerpted from a previous post:
"I'm gonna go out on a limb here and speculate that AM radio Top 40 playlists in the early '70s didn't generally include an awful lot of songs about transvestites, at least not in regular rotation. There was Lou Reed's 'Walk On The Wild Side' in 1972, of course, but beyond that? I can only think of one other example, from a couple of years before Reed's Holly came up from F-L-A. In 1970, she spelled her name L-O-L-A, Lola.
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
Except for Lola
Lo lo lo lo Lola
Well I left home just the week before
And I'd never ever kissed a woman before
Lola smiled and took me by the hand
And said, "Little boy, I'm gonna make you a man"
Now 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
"The ambiguity is deliberate; in its context, the phrase 'so is Lola' allows the possibility that Lola isn't necessarily a male in female guise, but perhaps is a woman, and she's glad that the singer's a man. No one interprets the song's meaning in that way. The clear consensus is that Lola's a dude.
"Not that there's anything wrong with that.
"I was oblivious to all of this. I was just a clueless li'l adolescent during Nixon's first term, and 'Lola' was a great song I heard on the radio. Its distinctive guitar opening, its lyrical imagery of a Soho nightclub where the champagne tastes just like cherry cola, and its irresistible singalong chorus made my radio yearn for greater volume to accommodate the song's pop power...
"...Within a few days after the Kinks' [1977] Saturday Night Live spot, I was speaking on the phone with my friend Lissa DeAngelo. As grizzled, mature high school students, we now understood the meaning of 'Lola' 's lyrics, and Lissa wondered if that meant Kinks leader Ray Davies was gay. I shrugged--yes, one can shrug over the phone--and said basically, I dunno, don't think so, but whatever. The previous year, a guy in the Class of '76 had brought a male companion to the Senior Ball; attitudes were changing--slowly, incrementally, at a glacier's breakneck pace, but changing nonetheless, and changing for the better. There was still a long way to go, and there's still a long way yet to go. The Kinks don't deserve much credit for that. But 'Lola' was undeniably a factor in my own evolving realization that gay rights were human rights. Years before Seinfeld made it a punch line, 'Lola' demonstrated that yeah, there wasn't anything wrong with that...."
We live in a time when LGBTQ+ rights are in constant peril, under constant attack. That's always been true, but right now feels worse than it's been in decades, and the situation shows no promise of immediate improvement. It's a serious, serious problem, and it must not be taken lightly.
It's ludicrous to think that the Kinks' "Lola" is in any way a part of that problem.
SLYBOOTS: If We Could Let Go
For yesterday's imaginary playlist of songs this messed up-world needs right now, I said:
"I will say that my # 1 choice in this subject is most definitely the 2024 clarion call 'If We Could Let Go' by the fab NYC group Slyboots. I wrote about that sublime track here, and you can buy yourself a digital copy of the song here. Given the troubles of our times, there's a decent shot "If We Could Let Go" is gonna rack up additional spins on almost every TIRnRR for the rest of the year. As I've written elsewhere, 'As the country and the world seem increasingly eager to leap into the abyss and take us all with it, I've been trying to draw strength from my current favorite phrase: The audacity of joy. It takes a lot--a lot--to even attempt any kind of positive outlook. But we can't give up on hope. That would mean giving in, and that's what the bad guys want us to do. I refuse. We need to do much more than just hold hands and sing "Kumbaya"...but we DO also need to hold hands and sing "Kumbaya." If we lose joy, we lose everything.' "
I am not letting go of that.
THE SHIRTS: I Wanna Be A Rocker
Wanna be a rocker? Worthy goal! As part of the 1970s NYC rock 'n' roll scene centered at CBGB and Max's Kansas City, the Shirts pursued that goal with determined flair. The Shirts recorded two albums for Capitol Records, but the group doesn't get mentioned often enough alongside storied scenemates like the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Television, and the Heartbreakers. They should be. The Shirts were the real deal.
The two Capitol records are long out of print (though available digitally), but the visionary Think Like A Key Music label has returned the classic Shirts sound to retail with a pair of exquisite archival live releases: 2025's Live Featuring Annie Golden (recorded live in the studio in 1981) and 2026's Live At Paradise 1979. Collectively, these two records are the next best thing to being near Bowery and Bleecker at precisely the right time to experience the rush of the Shirts in live performance.
From Live At Paradise 1979, last week's TIRnRR spin of "Starts With A Handshake" and this week's spin of "I Wanna Be A Rocker" serve up ace in-concert renditions of Shirts songs we've never played before. On our next show, we're turning to a Live At Paradise 1979 performance of a Shirts song already well-known to our listeners.
I'm telling you: Those are our plans.
THE HIVES: Tick Tick Boom
I first heard the Hives around 2002, when I saw them gloriously lip-sync "I Hate To Say I Told You So" on Top Of The Pops. At the time, this long-running British TV music program was carried Stateside on BBC America, and I watched its weekly cablecast whenever I could. Watching that day with my seven-year-old daughter, the sight and sound of the Hives had us dancing gleefully in the living room--cool memory, that. Visually, the Hives reminded me of Paul Revere and the Raiders (albeit without the Revolutionary War costumes), and the music suggested a herky-jerky blend of punk, pop, and Nuggets-approved '60s garage. I loved it.
A few weeks ago, our pal Fritz Van Leaven emailed me: "You've played the Hives, but never this cut. Curious to hear what you think of it." Well, "Tick Tick Boom" (from the group's 2007 work The Black And White Album) immediately reminded me of why I fell in love with the Hives' music in the first place. I bought the track and put it on the radio at my first opportunity. Thanks for the tip, Fritz!
THE BARRACUDAS: (I Wish It Could Be) 1965 Again
The Greatest Record Ever Made!
This week's show had already been programmed when we heard of the passing of songwriter Chip Taylor. At least some modest tribute to Taylor's work and legacy felt imperative, so we made the playlist changes necessary to accommodate five songs from the Chip Taylor songbook.
We went with two of Taylor's hits in their familiar renditions: "Wild Thing" by the Troggs and "I Can't Let Go" (co-written with Al Gorgoni) by the Hollies. We wanted to include singer/songwriter/guitarist Evie Sands, who was a friend of Taylor; she recorded several of his songs in the '60s, and we chose her 1969 single of "Any Way That You Want Me" as representation. We went with P. P. Arnold's cover of "Angel Of The Morning," and the Bobby Fuller Four's album track "Julie." Amazing songwriting talent; the world is poorer for the loss, but richer for having been able to hear Taylor's work in the first place.
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I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. You can read about our history here.
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