The song details a romantic encounter in a Soho bar between a young man and Lola, who is possibly a trans woman or cross-dresser.
[4][5][6] In the song, the narrator describes his confusion towards Lola, who "walked like a woman but talked like a man", yet he remains infatuated with her.
In 1980, a live version of the song from the album One for the Road was released as a single in the US and some European countries, becoming a minor hit.
Other versions include an instrumental on the band's 1971 movie soundtrack album Percy and live renditions from 1972's Everybody's in Show-Biz and 1996's To the Bone.
Ray Davies has claimed that he was inspired to write "Lola" after Kinks manager Robert Wace spent a night in Paris dancing with a cross-dresser.
[11] In his autobiography, Dave Davies said that he came up with the music for what would become "Lola", noting that brother Ray added the lyrics after hearing it.
I put them together on "Lola" which is what makes that clangy sound: the combination of the Martin and the Dobro with heavy compression.
Written in April 1970, "Lola" was cited by Ray Davies as the first song he wrote following a break he took to act in the 1970 Play for Today film The Long Distance Piano Player.
[18] However, "Lola", which Ray Davies later claimed was an attempt to write a hit, was eventually decided on as the debut single release.
[21] In the UK, the B-side to the single was The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society outtake "Berkeley Mews"[22] while the Dave Davies-penned "Mindless Child of Motherhood" was used in the US.
The success of the single had important ramifications for the band's career at a critical time, allowing them to negotiate a new contract with RCA Records, construct their own London Studio, and assume more creative and managerial control.
In a 1970 interview, Dave Davies stated that, if "Lola" had been a failure, the band would have "gone on making records for another year or so and then drifted apart".
[25] The BBC banned the track for a different reason: the original stereo recording had the words "Coca-Cola" in the lyrics, but because of BBC Radio's policy against product placement, Ray Davies was forced to make a 6,000-mile (9,700 km) round-trip flight from New York to London and back on June 3, 1970, interrupting the band's American tour, to change those words to the generic "cherry cola" for the single release, which is included on various compilation albums as well.
Upon the single's release, the NME praised the song as "an engaging and sparkling piece with a gay Latin flavour and a catchy hook chorus".
[24][nb 2] Writing a contemporary review in Creem, critic Dave Marsh recognized it as "the first significantly blatant gay-rock ballad".
[28] Billboard said of the song at the time of its US release, "Currently a top ten British chart winner, this infectious rhythm item has all the ingredients to put the Kinks right back up the Hot 100 here with solid impact".
[31][nb 3] Music critic Robert Christgau, despite his mixed opinion on the Lola vs. Powerman album, praised the single as "astounding".
[33] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic lauded the song for "its crisp, muscular sound, pitched halfway between acoustic folk and hard rock".
[36] The band revisited the "Lola" character in the lyrics of their 1981 song, "Destroyer", a minor chart hit in America.
[37] Satirical artist "Weird Al" Yankovic created a parody of the song called "Yoda", featuring lyrics about the Star Wars character of the same name, on his 1985 album Dare to Be Stupid.
[38] Since its release, "Lola" became a mainstay in the Kinks' live repertoire, appearing in the majority of the band's subsequent set-lists until the group's break-up.
[73] The British band Madness released a ska version of "Lola" on their 2005 album, The Dangermen Sessions, Volume One.