The Kinks - "Lola" (1970)

"Lola" is a song written by Ray Davies and performed by The Kinks which details a romantic encounter between a young man and a transvestite he meets in a club in Soho, London.

Released in June 1970, in the UK on the 12th and in the USA on the 28th, the single was taken from the album Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One and reached #2 in the UK charts and #9 in the US. It was ranked 422nd on the List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and its C-D-E power riff is recognized among the famous riffs of rock.

In the book The Kinks: The Official Biography, Davies says that he was inspired to write this song after the band manager Robert Wace had spent the night dancing with a transvestite.
Davies said, “ In his apartment, Robert had been dancing with this black woman, and he said, 'I'm really onto a thing here.'
And it was okay until we left at six in the morning and then I said, 'Have you seen the stubble?'
He said 'Yeah,' but he was too pissed [i.e., drunk] to care, I think. ”

In his autobiography, Dave Davies mentions that he came up with the music for what would become Lola.  After Dave had shown his brother the music, Ray came up with the lyrics. Dave goes on to claim his brother took all the credit for the song.

The original song recorded in stereo had the word "Coca-Cola" in the lyrics, but because of BBC Radio's policy against product placement, Ray was forced to make a six thousand mile round-trip flight from New York to London — interrupting the band's American tour — to change those words to the generic "cherry cola" for the single release.

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.