The light and pleasant motive of The Kinks song – Lola carries a very funny meaning. If we talk specifically about the group itself, then many music experts consider the group performing this composition to be incredibly English. Moreover, many people call them one of the main competitors of The Beatles, but only if within the framework of England itself. In America, the group was not so popular.
The thing is that the musical group was banned from entering the United States from 1965 to 1960. This was argued by the protection of American rock bands from competition, but other English musical groups could perform at festivals and give solo concerts without any problems. In fact, the group performed defiant antics on stage
The history of the creation of “Lola” – The Kinks
The song Lola was written in the UK on 06/12/1970, but in the United States the musical composition was released only sixteen days later. The song was originally included on the album Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One. The track peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart, as well as number nine on the Billboard Hot 100. The song quickly gained popularity and ranked 422 in the “Top 500 Songs of All Time”. In 1980, a live version of the musical composition was released. What is most interesting, the character from the track then appeared in other songs of the group.
Lola became the musical composition of The Kinks’ triumphant return to the world stage. However, to begin with, it was necessary to solve one problem.
At the moment, in modern realities, a musician can even create a home recording studio without any problems. However, in those days when the song Lola was created, everything was much more complicated. At the very beginning of the seventies, without using the technologies that are available now, it is much more difficult to record and release a new musical composition. And then, in order for the new work to be published, Ray Davis flew to London in the midst of a US tour, and managed to return on time and play a concert in New York the very next evening.
This decision was not taken lightly. Initially, the composition was recorded in order to attract the attention of radio stations, but there was a puncture, which The Kinks did not even initially pay attention to. The BBC was not opposed to provocative content, but categorically refused to put the musical composition on the air of the radio, since the name of the Coca-Cola brand was present in the text. As a result, the soloist urgently had to fly across the ocean in both directions only to replace the name of the soda in the text with cherry cola.
The meaning of the song “Lola” – The Kinks
Initially, I would like to note that the story told in the piece of music Lola is based on real events. As the lead singer of The Kinks himself says, this happened in a club in Paris. He was offered to dance by an African woman, whom he turned down, after which she left with the group’s manager. In his apartment they danced all night and Robert was too drunk to notice the stubble on the woman’s face. As a result, it turned out to be a guy dressed as a girl.
However, there is an alternate version by The Kinks drummer. For a certain time, the whole group was pursued by one person, whose name was Michael McGrath. He was a publicist and often invited a musical group to perform in transgender pubs. Such establishments were often secret and Ray could get inspiration in this place.
Some have speculated that the track was inspired by a date between Ray Davis and Candy Darling, but the lead singer denies this. They only had dinner together and all this time Ray knew that Candy Darling was transgender.
The song is about a romantic evening that begins at a club in Soho, London. The lyrical hero meets a beautiful girl who immediately liked him, but something confuses him in Lola. And then, in the end, according to the plot of the musical work, the lyrical hero realizes that in front of him is not a girl at all, but a guy who dressed up as a girl. This came as a surprise to the person who originally came just to dance in the club and did not expect that everything would happen like this.
Later, only in 1981, the same mysterious and unpredictable Lola from the musical composition of the same name will appear in a completely different song, which will become a kind of cameo in the track “Destroyer”. Quite rarely, lyrical heroes wander from one musical composition to another, but Lola was able to become such a breakthrough track that there is nothing surprising in the fact that then she still shone in other works.
