Lavender Jane Loves Women is a record by Lavender Jane, who were Alix Dobkin, Kay Gardner, and a woman whose name is so good that it sounds made up: Patches Attom. I think that record is the first ever recorded by a group of out lesbians. I have a copy of the version released in 1975, although it has since been reissued.

Strictly speaking, it's Simon's copy. He found it in a charity shop in Hendon a few years ago, it was in mint condition. He reckons some local lesbian had it in her collection out of loyalty to the Dyke Nation, but that finally she couldn't take it any more and had to get rid of the thing. As for me, I wonder whether or not it was part of the spoils from a particularly bad break-up between two dykes. We will never know.

This record exemplifies lesbian kitsch to me. I'm obsessed with it, or, more specifically, the penultimate track: View from Gay Head.

The song is a mixture of fluttery flutes, acoustic strings, women's voices singing as sweetly and non-patriarchally as they can. It contains a line that refers to there being "no penis between us," and "living in a no-man's land." It also has a great Sesame Street-style singalong chorus boasting the classic refrain: "lesbian, lesbian, any woman can be a lesbian."

The sleeve notes say: "The chorus came to me while Liza, Adrian and I were driving to Gay Head in Martha's Vineyard in the summer of '73. After we arrived I wrote the verses and very carefully lifted the tune from the Balkan song Savo Vodo which I had recently learned at my Balkan singing class."

By the way, additional vocals are provided by a bunch of gals called The Great Matriarchal Reunion and they over-pronounce the word "lesbian" making it sound like "lesbi-hehn." which always amuses me.

I like this song because it's painfully dated. It's a part of queer prehistory, like a big old lesbian dinosaur. It's hokey and corny, charming, whimsical, cute, sweet and naive. The original version of Barbara Hammer's film Dyketactics (1974) uses View from Gay Head as a soundtrack. It's a perfect mix - naked white hippie lesbians frolicking together in a sunny meadow, whilst the child-women sing their "any woman can be a lesbian" line. It's just...twee, which is why I find it hard to reconcile the song and its sentiments with the hardcore, mean-faced politics that came out of their scene.

To me separatism was like the lesbian dark ages. During those times "admitting" that you fancied men (sell out!), liked looking at porn (rapist!), enjoyed penetrative sex (victim of the patriarchy!) or even SM (nazi!) could rid you of all your friends and allies in the movement and destroy your credibility as a human being. Lesbian separatist community meetings had a lot on common with the Salem witch trials, albeit with added circle dancing and voluminous ethnic trousers.

In the 1980s I had a hard time under these rules, which explains why I still feel evil whenever I listen to this record. My boyfriend and I sing it to each other (stealing lesbian energy and giving it to men! Mocking the matriarchy! Being unfeminist!). It's weird to think that this somewhat ridiculous song could have become an anthem for a generation.

Any woman can be a lesbian
Any woman must be a lesbian
Any woman should be a lesbian

And one last thing: I don't think any woman can be a lesbian, some are just born to be straight. That's what I think.