“Lola” by The Kinks

"Lola" is Ray Davies's great piece of storytelling from the Kinks' Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One, a 1970 record made at Morgan Studios with Davies producing. It sets a young man in a Soho bar with Lola, who may be a trans woman or a cross-dresser, and follows his bafflement as it tips over into a crush he has no intention of giving up. Davies sings it with a wink, a shrug and total sympathy.

The sound is as sly as the story: a bright, strummed acoustic riff, a chorus you can't help joining, and a pop-rock bounce that makes the whole affair feel like a pub anecdote nobody wants to end. It went to number two in Britain and number nine on Billboard's Hot 100, and it has turned up on both Rolling Stone's and NME's rundowns of the 500 greatest songs.

Lola wouldn't go away. An instrumental version appeared on the band's 1971 Percy soundtrack, live takes on Everybody's in Show-Biz in 1972 and To the Bone in 1996, and a live version from One for the Road became a minor hit single in 1980, topping the Dutch chart just as the original had. She even turns up again in the lyrics of "Destroyer" in 1981.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.