The Name Game

By Lilli Marvin

When faced with the profound chorus of “Lola - Coca Cola Version” my brain and lungs and stomach seize. Time slips. It becomes, truly, a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world—I can’t help but confound my emotions with The Kinks’ frontman Ray Davies’; was it he who danced the electric-lit Parisian streets with the enigmatic Lola, or was it I? Given the potent yearning throughout the verses, listeners can’t help but feel like they, too, met and knew and loved Lola just the same. “Lola” as a song is raucous, impassioned, frenetic—is the type of track any person would love to be forever immortalized within.  

This feverish smash-hit from the 70s sent me on a quest to see what other sorts of people were deemed worthy by songwriters to be perpetually preserved in song. On this playlist—made up of songs with only names as titles—we meet the psychedelic-love-snatching Ralphie; a manic Mr. Tillman, holed up in a hotel room; Rylan, who should really try to get some sun; and many others—may you listen to them, meet them, and maybe extend your just family a little bit more.