10 Amazing Rock Songs That Got Banned

As the free love of the '60s started to become more and more expansive, there were a lot of bands that were willing to take more risks with what kind of love songs they talked about. Before we got the likes of David Bowie or T Rex being much more androgynous in the public eye, The Kinks' Lola seemed to check every box for a song that pushed against the grain, being about the protagonist going out with what turns out to be a crossdressing man. In an era when all of this was still taboo though, it's interesting that the one thing that the BBC took issue with was branding.

When you go through the entire lyric sheet, there's never explicit mention of Lola actually being a man, with it only being hinted at in lines like getting squeezed so tight that the singer breaks his spine or walking like a woman and talking like a man. That was all fine, but the real problem came in the very first line, where Ray Davies talks about seeing her in a bar and mentioning Coca Cola by name.

That was not going to fly due to the strict guidelines at the time, thinking that it wouldn't be consistent to endorse a specific brand of soda while playing your own song. The later versions of the song were edited to the more generic 'cherry cola' for the line, but it's actually pretty forward thinking of them not to have that many hangups with the rest of the song.