10 Songs That Were Censored For Utterly Ridiculous Reasons

6. The Kinks - "Lola"

Upon a swift glance at the lyrics, it's easy to understand why "Lola" garnered some controversy following its release. It was 1970 and the song appeared to be about an encounter with a transgender woman. Not everyone was comfortable with that kind of story. Some radio stations faded the song out midway through before the "big reveal" of this relationship, while Australia banned it outright for its controversial subject matter. But the BBC took a different approach in its censorship, refusing to play the track because it featured outright product replacement of Coca-Cola. Yep, they didn't care about Lola's gender or anything of the like, they just didn't want to give free promotion to the soda company. So Ray Davies was forced to fly round-trip from New York to London during the middle of The Kinks' American tour to re-record the line, changing it to the more generic "cherry cola." After the swap was made, everything was good with the BBC.