• Writer: Ray Davies
• Producer: Ray Davies
• Recorded: Spring 1970 at Morgan Studios in London England
• Released: June 1970
• Players:
  Ray Davies — vocals, guitar
  Dave Davies — guitar, vocals
  Pete Quaife — bass, vocals
  John Gosling — keyboards
  Mick Avory — drums
• Album: Lola Vs. Powerman And The Moneygoround, Part One (Reprise, 1970)
• Also On:
  The Kink Kronikles (Reprise, 1972)
  Everybody’s In Show-Biz (RCA, 1972)
  Second Time Around (RCA, 1980)
  One For The Road (Arista, 1980)
  Come Dancing With The Kinks: The Best Of The Kinks 1977-1986 (Arista, 1986)
• “Lola” helped the Kinks break a commercial slump. In the U.K., it hit Number One, replacing Free‘s “All Right Now.”
• It peaked at Number Nine in the U.S., the group’s first hit here since “Sunny Afternoon” in 1966.
• “Lola” is one of the most controversial songs in the Kinks repertoire, detailing a meeting and implied romance with a transvestite. Leader Ray Davies explained, “The song is actually meant to show that things aren’t always what they seem. In such realms, you could think one thing and something else would be hidden, lurking in the shadow. I like writing songs with stories about people. I live in a strange world to some, but I think the world is a lot stranger… if you read into the lyric, you’ll see the song is only about friendship.”
• Of the song’s main character, Davies said, “Lola is a real person and a very good friend of mine, a dancer, actually. I’m not going to tell you what sex the person is, though. It’s a joke song but it’s very real. I think that sex is very unimportant in friendships. That’s why I wrote the song.”
• Davies altered the song after it was first recorded, introducing “an old trick — find a hook in the song that isn’t the melody, and repeat it. I used the three-chord guitar riff that was between the verses and stuck it on the front.”
• The subject matter helped earn the song a radio ban in Australia. The BBC, meanwhile, made the group record a version of the song with the words “cherry cola” rather than “Coca Cola.”
• The album Lola Vs. Powerman And The Moneygoround, Part One peaked at Number 35 on the Billboard 200.

FAST FORWARD:

• Both Ray and his brother Dave Davies announced plans to leave the band several times, but those plans never lasted very long. The Kinks haven’t technically disbanded, but the group hasn’t released any new material since the 1990s. Ray Davies and Dave Davies have both toured with solo shows.
• The Kinks were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
• In January 2004, Ray Davies was shot in the leg in New Orleans after chasing a mugger who had stolen his companion’s purse. The injury wasn’t considered serious at first, but he had to cancel some shows due to complications and a prolonged recovery.
• Ray Davies was made a Commander Of The British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II at a Buckingham Palace ceremony in London in March 2004.
• In recent years, there have been rumors that the group would re-form, but those plans were put on hold after Dave Davies suffered a stroke. He recovered enough to release an album of new songs in early 2007.
• Ray Davies issues a solo album in 2006, and toured this spring. He says he’s not interested in a Kinks reunion.