🎤 About the Song
Lola is Ray Davies’ sly masterpiece — part comedy, part cultural bombshell. Released in 1970, it’s the story of a bloke who meets a captivating someone in a Soho club and realises — mid-champagne — that she’s not quite what he expected. For the early ’70s, that was nuclear-level taboo. Davies wrapped it in wit and a riff so infectious it disarmed every censor.
Musically it’s the Kinks’ cheeky swagger distilled: acoustic strum meets crunchy electric, swaggering bass, and Davies’ wink-and-grin vocal. It’s one of those songs where the story’s so good you forget it’s also an absolute jam.
🎸 Ukulele Playing Tips
- Chords: Mostly G – C – F – D7, with a few walk-ups and the occasional Csus4 jab.
- Strumming pattern: A confident D – DU – UDU at around 120 bpm. Keep it strutty, not frantic.
- Dynamics: Drop to half volume on “Well I’m not the world’s most physical guy” to give the verses a sly grin; punch the choruses.
- Feel: Think “pub sing-along with attitude.”
- Trick: On a tenor uke, use the low G string to walk G → B → C; that bass run sells the swagger.
- Finish: End on a big unmuted G and let it ring like a lipstick-smeared wink to the crowd.
🧠 Trivia You Can Drop Casually
- BBC radio tried to ban Lola — not for the cross-dressing story, but because it originally mentioned “Coca-Cola.” Davies re-recorded it as “cherry cola” to dodge product-placement rules.
- The track was a comeback hit, reviving The Kinks just when they were slipping off the charts.
- It’s now considered a pioneering bit of gender-fluid storytelling that aged far better than most ’70s rock humour.
- Ray Davies once joked, “If I wrote Lola today, it’d be called LGBTQ and the Moneygoround.”
🌈 Final Word
Play Lola with swagger and zero judgement. It’s camp, clever, and catchy as hell — the perfect uke sing-along for people who appreciate a good story and a killer G-chord.
