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Lola

by The Kinks • Lesson #427 • Apr 1, 2022

Print-Friendly Song Sheet 4 pages

Follow along with my print-friendly guide for this song! It’s available for purchase at Musicnotes.com, the web’s leading provider of licensed sheet music.

On the fence? Here's a guide I made showing the purchase & print process, including answers to common questions about my song sheets.

Buy at Musicnotes.com

Editor’s notes

Hey there, friends! New guitar lesson today showing how to play Lola by The Kinks, from beginning to end. I’ll tackle the intro riff, verse, chorus, bridge, and break down the distinctive lead guitar fill heard at the end of each verse. In total, this song uses a moderate number of chords (with some tricky rhythmic bits in the bridge) – but I’ll show you few options on how to approach strumming during the tricky parts. Let’s do it!

Timestamps for my full video lesson:

0:00 Lesson Summary
1:27 Intro
4:11 Verse
7:49 Chorus
10:15 Bridge
15:24 Lead Fill Riff
20:10 Playthrough

Extended Intro & Verse Riff (Lesson #165)

Here’s my initial video, which focuses on the instrumental intro & verse riff. This is inspired by Mike Massé’s acoustic cover, which is shown below. The tab for this section is included in my 4-page sheet music linked above.

Mike Massé’s Acoustic Cover

Here is the video of YouTuber Mike Massé playing this song. Great cover! This inspired me to learn it. I teach his extended intro riff (or a close-enough version of it) in my video lesson #165, shown above.

The Kinks live version from 1980

In this version you can hear the extended acoustic intro that Mike Massé plays in his acoustic cover up above. They start playing in 1:06 of this video:

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About Song Notes

Hey there! My name is David Potsiadlo, and I'm the creator of the 400+ weekly lessons here at Song Notes, going back to 2013. Here’s my guitar story »

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Lola

Print-Friendly Song Sheet 4 pages

Editor’s notes

Extended Intro & Verse Riff (Lesson #165)

Mike Massé’s Acoustic Cover

The Kinks live version from 1980

Browse Related Lessons

About Song Notes

Get Free Lessons Each Week!

Enjoy my lessons? Buy me a beer!

Fun & Helpful Tools I've Made

Fret Monster

Capo Captain

Subscribe to my YouTube channel

Recent Lessons

Major Key Cheat Sheets: Must-Know Chords, Scales, and Fretboard Diagrams

"Stuff That Works" by Guy Clark

Monday Morning Triad Practice! (Key of A Major)

"Into the Mystic" by Van Morrison

Practicing Major Arpeggios in Each CAGED Shape

Travel Guitar... Worth It, or a Waste? (Taylor GS Mini review, 3 years later)

Creating a Fingstyle Arrangement from Scratch (feat. Graceland by Paul Simon)

"Bouncing Around the Room" by Phish

Simple Way to Travis Pick Any Song (Key of C)

"Summertime Blues" by Zach Bryan

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