It’s just astonishing, isn’t it, how song lyrics stay the same as they were written.
And regardless of whatever impression Moby gets from this song, it sounds to me like the narrator finds out that Lola is a man but he’s into it anyway, and it’s basically a love song expressing tender feelings for this trans woman that he met down in old Soho.
Now you’ve got me rethinking Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.”
This seems reasonable. I think a lot of people are still trying to reconcile the best way to enjoy and recognize the importance of past works with contemporary sensibilities. It’s perfectly okay if someone doesn’t think it’s their cup of tea.
Now?, I made the obvious connection the first time I heard the song as an adult… (wait, does that mean that I have a dirty mind?)
I was 13 when the song came out and I think I made the connection a year or two later.
As far as “Lola” is concerned, I never interpreted it as saying anything negative about her. I always interpreted Lola as being a transvestite rather than transgender. In part because transgender wasn’t part of my lexicon back in the late 80s when I would have first heard the song.
Most of the times I’ve heard that song on the radio they cut that verse.
In the intervening decades the BBC have employed some people who do know what that term means 
That makes sense, I did not make the connection as a teen because I couldn’t understand the English Lyrics 
Though, now that I think about it, I would’ve probably not understood the subtext so early, I’ve always been a bit slow with innuendo.
As an American I didn’t know what “finger pie” meant in the Penny Lane lyrics. Did they play that on BBC radio?
Yup though that’s a double entendre which they are generally much more happy with. And a relatively subtle one at that, I was obsessed with both the Beatles and double entendres as a British teenager, and never got that particular one (fish sticks are called fish fingers in the UK, so I assumed it was a working class thing in Liverpool to pad out real fish with fish fingers in a pie)
It’s also a class thing. The Oxbridge educated denizens of the Beeb would probably have caught an allusion to the sex acts in Satyricon but liverpulian working class slang went right over their head
Indeed, but “gross” is not quite so light. And I’d say calling something “transphobic” in 2026 is not at all light, particularly when you are pretty much completely wrong about that.
Lola is a masterpiece of a song precisely because the lyrics are so perfectly ambiguous. Everybody “knows” what they mean even though half the people interpret it in a way opposite to the other half, and a third half looks at it orthogonally.
As somebody who was listening in 1970, I always assumed Lola was a transvestite. The number of people who were famously transgender then probably could be counted on one hand, and the number of people who would get the reference even fewer. But transvestites were common knowledge, whether they were accepted or reviled.
I have always hated under my thumb. Generly I like the stones, but that song always makes me want to punch mic in his smug face.
Same here. I have been a massive stones fan, since I started listening to music (as long as I’ve been a Kinks fan). But that song always really bugged me, long before I could articulate it as clearly describing emotional abuse by a controlling arsehole. Even if it’s not describing a real relationship that happened, it’s glorifying and aspiring to be the controlling arsehole in that relationship, which isn’t much better.
Less so Stupid Girl though. It’s not a nice song, but there is nothing abusive about it, just a cathartic slagging off of another woman.
I’d probably go with “Run For Your Life” by The Beatles. Even John Lennon ended up hating it, and he wrote it.
That was my assumption through the years, although I think the song hits harder if Lola is trans.
Another thought on the song: the narrator mentions that he’d “never kissed a woman before”. It also works better if the narrator is seen as a young naive gay man in denial, which explains both his general confused state about gender and sexuality and why he was so quickly drawn to Lola as a penis-haver. But that’s just my random speculation.
I’m of the opinion that it was just to cultivate their bad-boy image. I was way too young to get to this idea at the time it was released, though. I would have been, if I’m doing my math correctly, eight years old.
But this comes with the disclaimer that I don’t know how Mick has conducted his personal relationships with the array of women he’s become involved with over the years. If someone were to come forward and convincingly say “No, that song was pure Mick back then, and it still is to this day,” I would have no choice but to express a bit of disappointment.
That said, “too young to get the idea” is a big thing here. Very few listeners in the impressionable teenage pop music audience would have thought of that.
Re Under My Thumb: I have always believed that the singer thinks he’s got her where he wants her, but he is in error. I know the lyrics don’t support that, but it’s the vibe I get.
I had a Classics professor in college make a pretty convincing case that Under My Thumb is actually about Antigone and Creon. If he’s right, then your vibe would be correct and one can enjoy the song more freely 
Kinda like how one can enjoy the song Lola freely, if one so chooses…
Here in Chicago, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that song with the “giving head” line cut from it. But stations will cut out the entire line of “when masturbation’s lost its fun you’re fucking lonely” from Green Day’s Longview, where it used to be (to my memory) that they only bleeped the “fucking” part.
As to the OP, I’ve never considered “Lola” to be anything but queer-positive, and that last line with its ambiguity or wink-wink-nudge-nudge an example of Ray Davies’s lyrical prowess. That’s such a great line and finish to the song.
I also heard this song when I was young (though 20+ years after it was released) but I was never comfortable with it, even as a kid who couldn’t articulate what the problem was.
That’s still pretty awful though. It’s not boasting amount having lots of girlfriends and not commiting to anyone. The singer is aspiring to be an abusive controlling arsehole, even if its just boasting thats a shitty thing to sing about.
Though in this case it is definitely a product of its time. Both in society generally and counterculture specifically, that kind of abusive behavior against women was considered completely acceptable. In fact, bringing it somewhat back to the OP, Lola is treated better in the song than most cishet women muses in the rock songs of the era.
I’d argue thats a unfair comparison. Under My Thumb is acceptable by the standards of the day, but by modern standards its advocating for (or admitting to) emotional abuse. If Moby had publicly called it out as a song he hates and can’t listen to, that would be fine (I would concur personally). Lola stands out as an empowering LGBT positive song by 2026 standards, let alone 1970 standards.