The US single edit of “Who Are You” has the redone line “who the hell are you.” I’m not the world’s most knowledgeable Who fan, but I think this version may not have been released on CD yet. I have three different Who CD compilations that don’t have it. That could be the reason why you never hear it on the radio.
Goodness, what if the innocent, pure children of the United States heard these horrid words of Satan on the radio?
They might be so shocked as to interrupt their own sex and drug use. Heck, they might even be so put off as to stop making profane music of their own.
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I asked about this some time back, but I can’t find the thread on it (it was in GQ). Anyway, here’s the gist of the answers that I got (some of them even had cites):
Originally, the song was played on the air in the edited form, but when Album Oriented Radio stations became popular, they played the album version of the song which used the word “fuck” and since no one’s called into the FCC to complain about it, it keeps being played.
I would imagine that there are some outlets which use the censored version to this day. Muzak, which in addition to providing horrible instrumental covers of songs, also provides themed playlists of music. Not only do they make such bizarre combinations as following up an Air Supply song with one by Billy Idol, they use rare versions of songs which have been edited for trademark reasons. “Lola” by The Kinks was recut in order to get played on the BBC, by changing the line “where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca Cola” to “where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Cherry Cola”.
And how do you pronounce that?
Yeah, this song was released back in the days of vinyl, when singles were realesed on 45’s, which is what the radio stations usually played, and which occasionally differed from the “album version” of the song.
It’s been a while since I’ve heard the song, but doesn’t the dreaded F-word come near the very end of the recording, making it easy for DJs to stop playing it before it got to that part?
I have all kinds of these different 45 mixes. Some records even had special mixes for radio that were different from the ones on the commercial single!
On the LP version, the F-word comes up first in the second chorus. Kinda hard to avoid that one! On the single, it’s entirely absent.
Hmm. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the Coca Cola version. I always thought it was cherry cola.
I’ve almost always heard the Coca Cola version. How I found out about the “cherry cola” version (which was for the BBC, because they were worried Coke would sue over the use of their name in the song) was a radio program on QFM 96 in Columbus, OH that ran back in the late 1980s. It was sponsored by Bent Back Records (no longer in business, I believe) which carried bootlegs, imports and other rarities. The show was basically a informercial for the store, since all they played were unusual recordings of songs, and there’s about five or so versions of Lola, with different variations on the lyrics. Some of which hide the fact that Lola is a transvestite.
Actually, The Kinks were required to change the line in “Lola” because of the advertising ban on the BBC, in which a reference to Coca-Cola could be construed as advertising - not because they feared a lawsuit from Atlanta. The single of this record in every country where it was issued featured the change to cherry cola. The album version has always been Coca-Cola.
As a rabid Kinks collector, having every one of their recordings issued and unissued, from their first session through the 1980s, I’m going to have to ask you for a cite on there being “four or five versions of ‘Lola’”. Your post is the first I’ve ever heard of it. I know hundreds of Kinks Kollectors who would be very happy to find alternate recordings, assuming such things exist. Currently, the total number of alternate versions of this song to escape total 0.
And what song started this whole controversy? Louie, Louie by the Kingsmen, of course.
That night at 10, I laid her a again.
I don’t remember the exact number of tracks the DJ played cuts from, but there was the one with the “cherry cola” edit and the one that hid the fact that Lola was a transvestite that I remember for sure, possibly a few more cuts were played, but I can’t say for sure it having been nearly 20 years ago that I heard it and I was half asleep at the time. A google search for “Bent Back Records” turns up nothing useful, and a check of the radio station’s website doesn’t show the DJ as still being there (don’t remember his name, but he was from Atlanta, GA and sounded British). You could email 'em and see if anyone there remembers the show, and then you might be able to track down the DJ to see what he has to say about it.
Nah, I think I’ll go with the general consensus of the network of Kinks Kollectors worldwide, none of whom have ever uncovered any other version of “Lola” not on the single or album. There is no version in which the transvestitism is censored or removed, unless a radio station made its own edit - which is not unheard of. Otherwise, we’d all have the bootlegs containing them. I don’t mean to be unduly pessimistic, but I contend that your 20-year-old memory has been distorted by the passage of time.
Could be, I’m not much of a Kinks fan (nothing against 'em, mind you, just not my type of music), so I wasn’t paying that close attention to it.
Be fair: there are at least five released versions of the song. There’s the original album version, the censored single, the instrumental version on Percy, the live version from One for the Road, (also released as a single), and the other live “version” from Everybody’s in Show Biz (well, it’s listed as a track on the album, so it counts…). That doesn’t explain the idea of alternate lyrics that “hide” Lola’s sexual ambiguity, of course.
Well, we weren’t counting versions which were recorded after the original was released. If you want to count concerts and radio and TV apperances, there are dozens of versions. The way Tuckerfan worded his post, I took it to mean that he said he heard multiple variations on the original recording. If this is not the case, I apologize profusely for misunderstanding.
So, how 'bout dem Who boys!
This is why Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome” was never released as a single in the UK.
Also, there is a “clean” version of “Jet Airliner”. Steve says “kicks” instead of “shit”.
By the way, as bit of trivia, I’d heard that years ago Johnny (Rotten) Lyndon of the Sex Pistols came over to Pete at a party, looked him in the face, said “Who the fuck are you?”, and walked off. Pete thought it was quite funny and it was the instpiration for the song.
The Sex Pistols was also the inspiration for Pete’s “Rough Boys”.