Lola (song)

Lola" is a song written by Ray Davies and performed by English rock band the Kinks. The song details a romantic encounter between a young man and a possible transvestite or transgender person he meets in a club in Soho, London, with the narrator describing his confusion towards a person named Lola who "walked like a woman and talked like a man".

Released in June 1970, in the UK on the 12th and in the USA on the 28th, the single was taken from the album Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One and reached #2 in the UK charts[2]  [dead link] [3]  and #9 in the US.[1]  It was ranked 422nd on the List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.[4]



Contents
[hide]  *1 Inspiration  ==Inspiration[ edit] == In the book The Kinks: The Official Biography, Davies said that he was inspired to write this song after the band manager Robert Wace had spent the night dancing with a transvestite. Davies said, In his autobiography, Dave Davies said that he came up with the music for what would become Lola. After Dave had shown his brother the music, Ray came up with the lyrics. Dave went on to say his brother took all the credit for the song.
 * 2 Live single
 * 3 Chart performance
 * 4 See also
 * 5 References
 * 6 External links

The original song recorded in stereo had the word "Coca-Cola" in the lyrics, but because of BBC Radio's policy against product placement, Ray was forced to make a six thousand mile round-trip flight from New York to London and back—interrupting the band's American tour—to change those words to the generic "cherry cola" for the single release.[5]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:inherit;">The success of the single had important ramifications for the band's career at a critical time, allowing them to negotiate a new contract with RCA Records, construct their own London Studio, and assume more creative and managerial control. ==Live single<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:inherit;">A live version of the song, recorded in 1979 in Providence, Rhode Island, was released in the US in July 1980 to promote the live album One for the Road. The B-side was the live version of "Celluloid Heroes". The single was a moderate success, reaching #81 on the Billboard Hot 100.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-allmusic_1-3" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:10.9090909957886px;">[1]  It was also released in some countries in Europe (although not the UK) in April 1981. It was a big hit in the Netherlands, matching the #1 peak of the original version,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-dutchcharts.nl_6-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:10.9090909957886px;">[6]  and in Belgium where it reached #2. It also charted in Australia. Although not released as a stand-alone single in the UK, it was included on a bonus single (backed with the live version of "David Watts") with initial copies of "Better Things" in June 1981. ==Chart performance<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] ==