What a Drag

Jesus Christ! Superstar!
Walks like a woman and he wears a bra.
Playground song, early 1970s

I once had to wear a dress for a school play though I swear I'm not usually that way inclined (it was Shakespeare! I did it for art!). But if I was I could have had quite a lucrative career in England where we seem to love few things more than a man in a dress. In most countries cross-dressing is confined to kitschy bars in the gay part of town but in England camping it up a nice frock, make-up, and heels will make you something of national icon loved by all the family from Charley's Aunt to Danny La Rue, Boy George, Eddie Izzard ("I'm an Executive Transvestite") and Lily Savage — and it certainly didn't hurt David Bowie's career. Then there's the stock English character of the accountant in suburbia who likes to slip into the wife's little cocktail number and mince about while she's out down the shops. I'm sure this all says something deeply kinky about us as a nation but that's a box I'd rather not open.

Probably the most famous pop song about transvestites is "Lola" by The Kinks (English band, naturally) which was given a brilliantly inspired cover by feminist post-punkers The Raincoats in 1979. The idea of Ray Davies' ode to cross-dressers being performed by an all-girl band constructs such a Hall of Mirrors of gender bending and sexual ambiguity you'd need several PhDs to deconstruct it. It's like the song itself is in drag.

Download: Lola - The Raincoats (mp3)

OK, I admit it, that dress was really comfortable.