Lola — The Kinks’ 1970 hit was controversial for its risqué lyrics, and its reference to a soft drink

The song went on to be covered by artists such as Damon Albarn — and Kinks frontman Ray Davies

In the halcyon days of rock, there was scarcely a band around that wasn’t getting in trouble with the authorities over coke, and The Kinks were no exception. Well, sort of. While other groups were being busted for cocaine possession, Ray Davies and his band found themselves in hot water with broadcasting regulators for mentioning the Coca-Cola brand in their 1970 single “Lola” — sex, soft drinks and rock’n’roll, as they say.

While the BBC was so scandalised by the song’s use of the words “Coca-Cola” that it banned the track (because of its policy against product placement, whether voluntary or otherwise), other broadcasters were more perturbed by the fact that “Lola” was full of risqué allusions to the first of the above triumvirate of vices. For countless stations from Australia to the US, this record about a “shook-up world” in which “girls will be boys, and boys will be girls” was deemed far too destabilising to air.

The song’s combination of an attention-grabbing intro riff, arch lyrics and a catchy chorus meant that “Lola” became an immediate hit, reaching number two in the UK charts and breaking into the top US top 10. For The Kinks, this success served as much-needed proof of their commercial viability, giving them leverage to renegotiate their contract with their label, RCA. Guitarist Dave Davies later hypothesised that had “Lola” flopped, the group would probably have disbanded.

But things were so nearly different. News of the BBC’s ban on “Lola” had reached The Kinks only a few days ahead of its scheduled release, while they were on tour in the US. Given that it was imperative for the band’s future that the song received radio time, singer and songwriter Ray Davies travelled back-and-forth twice between London and the Midwest in a week — racking up 16,000 air miles in the process — just to change “Coca-Cola” to the unbranded “cherry cola”.

One wonders if Davies ever regretted choosing a name that lent itself to the problematic rhyme. After all, there was no one “real” Lola; the song was instead inspired by the various transvestites, transsexuals and drag queens the band knew from their nights cavorting in underground clubs. The imperceptive narrator, meanwhile, was probably based on The Kinks’ manager Robert Wace who, so the story goes, had been flirting with a trans person, not realising, or perhaps not caring, that they had a beard. The song’s tongue-in-cheek description of Lola, who, we’re told, could nearly break a spine and “walk like a woman but talk like a man”, may perhaps sound overly caricatured today. But despite its gently teasing glibness, the track is defined by Lola’s warmth and the narrator’s instinctual affection towards her.  

Davies’s own fondness for “Lola” saw him return to it four decades later in a new recording for his 2010 album of duets. This version makes for a wearing listen, however, thanks to the accompaniment by Paloma Faith, who adds gratuitous flourishes to almost every note.

Robbie Williams could have done with some of Faith’s excess zeal in his faithful, if bloodless, cover of the original from 2007. His mischievously cocky persona should have been a perfect fit for a song laden with winking innuendo, but his delivery feels underpowered and overly earnest.

By contrast, Madness frontman Suggs committed to the song’s playfulness on the ska band’s 2005 cover, delivering the final verse in speech to accentuate the “big reveal”. That Lola turns out to be a man was a subtlety lost on pre-teen listeners who were introduced to the song through a cover by floppy-haired heartthrobs McFly; the comments section of the YouTube video is filled with charmingly naive questions about what it all means.

Elsewhere, “Weird Al” Yankovic released an excellent parody cover which centres around Star Wars’ Yoda. And yet, this isn’t the strangest iteration of “Lola”. In 2001, Blur’s Damon Albarn collaborated with Icelandic musician Einar Benediktsson on an album which included an instrumental “dub” version of The Kinks’ hit. Played partially on the toylike melodica, it sounds more like a polyphonic ringtone than a song.

Few of the covers recorded over the past half century have done much justice to The Kinks’ original. But “Lola”’s legacy endures in later releases that similarly brought diverse sexualities into the mainstream, such as Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side”, David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” and Blur’s “Girls and Boys”. It would be revisionist to suggest that The Kinks were actively invested in promoting gender fluidity, but they did help normalise orientations that were then still largely verboten; as Ray Davies put it, “It really doesn’t matter what sex Lola is, I think she’s alright.”

What are your memories of ‘Lola’? Let us know in the comments section below.

‘The Life of a Song Volume 2: The fascinating stories behind 50 more of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by Brewer’s.

Music credits: Sanctuary; UMC (Universal Music Catalogue); Virgin Records; Universal-Island Records Ltd; Volcano/Legacy; Parlophone UK  

Picture credit: Mirrorpix