June Third : RAY DAVIES of THE KINKS travels round trip NY-London to change 1 word in his hit “LOLA"

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Colouring The Past

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Kinks: Lola

On this date in 1970, RAY DAVIES of THE KINKS travels round trip NY-London to change 1 word in LOLA ('Coca-Cola' to 'Cherry Cola') because of BBC commercial reference ban (Jun 3, 1970)

This song is about a chap who meets a woman (Lola) in a club who takes him home and rocks his world. The twist comes when we find out that Lola is a man.

As stated in The Kinks: The Official Biography, Ray Davies wrote the lyrics after their manager got drunk at a club and started dancing with what he thought was a woman. Toward the end of the night, his stubble started showing, but their manager was too drunk to notice.

Said Davies: "'Lola' was a love song, and the person they fall in love with is a transvestite. It's not their fault - they didn't know - but you know it's not going to last. It was based on a story about my manager."

Ray Davies revealed to Q magazine in a 2016 interview: "The song came out of an experience in a club in Paris. I was dancing with this beautiful blonde, then we went out into the daylight and I saw her stubble. "

He added; "So I drew on that but coloured it in, made it more interesting lyrically."

The Kinks came up with the riff after messing around with open strings on guitars. The group's guitarist, Dave Davies, contended that he deserved a songwriting credit on the track, leading to additional friction with his brother Ray, who got the sole composer credit.

"Lola" revived The Kinks in America, where they hadn't had a Top 40 hit since "Sunny Afternoon" in 1966. 

Their first American tour in 1965 did not go well - they clashed with their promoter, drew sparse crowds, and often played short sets. The group was so petulant, the American Federation of Musicians refused to issue them permits, effectively banning them from the country until 1969. 

By the time "Lola" was released, most Americans hadn't heard from the Kinks in years, but the song proved very popular and this time, the band could promote it.

The line "You drink champagne and it tastes just like cherry cola" was recorded as "it tastes just like Coca-Cola." The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) refused to play it because of the commercial reference, so Ray Davies flew from New York to London to change the lyric and get the song on the air.

There was speculation, fueled by a 2004 piece in Rolling Stone magazine, that this song was inspired by the famous transgender actress Candy Darling, who Kinks lead singer Ray Davies allegedly dated for a brief time. 

This is the same Candy mentioned in Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side" ("Candy came from out on the island, in the backroom she was everybody's darling").

Ray Davies, who wrote this song, told Rolling Stone in 2014 why this song didn't cause more of an uproar considering its storyline. "The subject matter was concealed," he said. "It's a crafty way of writing. I say, 'She woke up next to me,' and people think it's a woman. The story unfolds better than if the song were called 'I Dated a Drag Queen.'"

Kinks fans were not the types who would relate to a cross-dresser, but they loved this song. It opened the door for artists like Lou Reed and David Bowie to explore gender fluidity in songs that appealed to rock fans of all stripes.

Ray Davies used his National Steel resonator guitar for the first time on this song. He recalled to Uncut: "On 'Lola' I wanted an intro similar to what we used on Dedicated Follower Of Fashion, which was two Fender acoustic guitars and Dave's electric guitar so I went down to Shaftesbury Avenue and bought a Martin guitar, and this National guitar that I got for £80, then double-tracked the Martin, and double-tracked the National – that's what got that sound."

Ray Davies told Daniel Rachel (The Art of Noise: Conversations with Great Songwriters) that he didn't initially show the lyrics to the band. "We just rehearsed it with the la-la la-la Lo-la chorus which came first. I had a one-year-old daughter at the time and she was singing along to it."

Ray Davies knew how to craft a hook, and he found a good one here. He said: "I wrote 'Lola' to be a great record, not a great song. Something that people could recognize in the first five seconds. Even the chorus, my two-year-old daughter sang it back to me. I thought, 'This must catch on.'"