Lola 2

This is the second in a series, catch the first one in the archives on the right to catch up!

 Personally, one of the things I most love about God is His incredible creative genius. We, being created in His image, are also made to create. When I see what we humans come up with, imperfect as it is, it makes me happy. It makes me glorify God. I can honestly say, part of what’s going on when I’m enjoying The Kinks’ song, Lola, is that I admire the creativity it exhibits, and it makes me think about the Creator who created the creator who created Lola.

  I don’t have this experience with all art. There is a lot of really bad art out there – a surprising percentage of which is created expressly to mock God and another percentage that’s created to do the opposite, but because it isn’t well thought out or true, it ends up mocking God all the same. However, I don’t believe this is true of Lola, or of a lot of “secular” art in general. Yes, I believe that God would probably be grieved at the lifestyle and culture that a song like Lola comes out of, and I should be, too. But Lola doesn’t glorify the lifestyle – in fact, part of the genius of the song is that it makes fun of itself. 

   It tells a story that people have loved in all its different forms for more than a thousand years – the country rube goes to the city, and he thinks he’s all that, because he got away from the sticks-in-the-mud in his small town. Practically the minute he gets off the bus, he makes a huge mistake due to his ego, stupidity and naïveté, that most people (including the audience) could see coming a mile away. Ultimately, the mistake leads to greater self-knowledge.

  

 By 1970, this story has been told a hundred different ways – everyone has heard it more than once. Yet, Ray Davies takes it and sets it to the bizarre chorus of the life he found himself in. With one bold, humorously self-effacing song he and his mates exhibit a cutting edge musical style, an amazing set of lyrics, and an astute commentary on society in general. I would say that’s worth admiring and, yes, even emulating.  Because there isn’t much new under the sun, and if Christian artists were striving to do what the Kinks did, and setting it to the chorus of their lives in Christ, think what kind of art we Christians would be producing. It’d be different than most of what we have currently – it would be better.

“…Girls will be boys and boys will be girls.

It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world…”

  The words still apply. Seriously, I’d rather not struggle with this. I’d much rather play it safe.  It wouldn’t kill me if I never heard Lola again. I could go all Amish and walk away from pop culture altogether, it would be easy. I have that kind of personality – I home school my kids – I’m half-way there already.

  Except…except…Jesus never played it safe. Not once that I know of. It seems like most Christian artists are happy to do so, though. We’re pretty sure we know what we shouldn’t do, but that doesn’t get us anywhere until we hit on what we should be doing. Kind of reminds me of some other lyrics, by another of my favorite bands, 

“…The trouble is

We don’t know who we are instead…”

  I could walk away from Lola and all of pop culture, but that wouldn’t change anything, because I’d still be the girl who loves Lola. Isn’t that the heart of it – my desire? If Lola is wrong to listen to, it’s not that there needs to be less Lola in the world – there just needs to be less Lisa.

Thanks to Erika and her friends for the awesome picture!