So, there's a mountain called Mount Lola, not far from Nevada City, named after Lola Montez, who lived in California for a while. [thanks Wikipedia]
My guess: hence Joanna's interest in Lola. Because of the mountain, she found out a bit about Lola, and thought her an interesting character, likely to have a rich and complex emotional life, which got her imagination going.
Tarantula 'mounting' Lola's brassiere - pun on Mount Lola??
In fact, 'mount Lola' kind of sounds like an activity... one that quite a lot of different men did over the years, it seems. Maybe my mind's in the gutter, but I hear a sexual meaning to the phrase 'have one on me' too - i.e. as a secondary meaning.
[which then makes it a curious choice for an album title - though my impression from listening to the album is certainly of a long series of good loves gone bad ("I loved them all, one by one" sounds not so different from Lola), and of sometimes feeling like some kind of harlot, being passed from man to man, though really it's just that she's insatiably generous and takes pleasure in giving herself ("have one on me"). An extended lament by someone who is made of love but can't find where to put it. Whether or not this is Joanna's actual experience I have no idea; it's just the prevailing mood I feel in these songs.]
To me, the song doesn't have a particular 'message', and it doesn't matter who's good and who's bad in the story (seems like everyone's a little of both - or maybe a lot of both); it's simply a mindscape, of someone who lived a passionate whirlwind of a life, and hurt just like everyone else.
I love the line "but there is nothing I adore apart from that whore's black heart". Gives me shivers.
Scattered thoughts:
So, there's a mountain called Mount Lola, not far from Nevada City, named after Lola Montez, who lived in California for a while. [thanks Wikipedia]
My guess: hence Joanna's interest in Lola. Because of the mountain, she found out a bit about Lola, and thought her an interesting character, likely to have a rich and complex emotional life, which got her imagination going.
Tarantula 'mounting' Lola's brassiere - pun on Mount Lola??
In fact, 'mount Lola' kind of sounds like an activity... one that quite a lot of different men did over the years, it seems. Maybe my mind's in the gutter, but I hear a sexual meaning to the phrase 'have one on me' too - i.e. as a secondary meaning.
[which then makes it a curious choice for an album title - though my impression from listening to the album is certainly of a long series of good loves gone bad ("I loved them all, one by one" sounds not so different from Lola), and of sometimes feeling like some kind of harlot, being passed from man to man, though really it's just that she's insatiably generous and takes pleasure in giving herself ("have one on me"). An extended lament by someone who is made of love but can't find where to put it. Whether or not this is Joanna's actual experience I have no idea; it's just the prevailing mood I feel in these songs.]
To me, the song doesn't have a particular 'message', and it doesn't matter who's good and who's bad in the story (seems like everyone's a little of both - or maybe a lot of both); it's simply a mindscape, of someone who lived a passionate whirlwind of a life, and hurt just like everyone else.
I love the line "but there is nothing I adore apart from that whore's black heart". Gives me shivers.