Friday August 21, 2020 “Lola” Kinks
It took a frivolous Friday for us to get to “Lola”, la la la la Lola.
One of the eariest and maybe only-est pop songs about transgender dating and it was initially banned by the BBC, not because of the lyrical content but becuase it contained the line ‘where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca Cola”. Branding apparently was forbidden by BBC standards. Songwriter and Kinks lead singer Ray Davies had to fly from New York to London to change the lyric to ‘cherry cola’ to allow airplay to begin for the song.
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 has stated that this story is false and although he did have dinner with Candy Darling a few times they were not dating. Knighted by the Queen, Sir Raymond has been often referred to as "the godfather of Britpop".
A prolific songwriter, Ray Davies would always look for the musical hook that would make a song memorable and he felt he succeeded with “Lola” when he heard his two year old daughter singing the chorus.
Stay safe and well and...enjoy the almost live version of “Lola”.
