The Emigration Playlist: 64 years of songs. # 9 Lola's Theme (Lola's Loungin' Mix) - Shapeshifters/Ministry of Sound 2004.
So now we come to the first giant on the list. Not the greatest song maybe, not the most legendary, but one that is rooted in me with such a strong emotional hook that it’ll be with me till my last breath as a Top 5 Lifetime Tune. Much of it is actually sampled from elsewhere; a song constructed of the parts of others. Yet I play this song all the time, 22 years after it was first released, and it (specifically a particular remix) is absolutely embedded in a joyous memory.
It’s 2004 and I’m running my market research business with my (now) ex. I did qualitative research, mostly what Blair’s government poisoned by embedding the American term ‘focus groups’ into the public consciousness and then misusing it, and them, cynically, but which we old-skoolers called ‘group discussions’. I’m doing pretty well at it, running it all out of our country home in the last few years of the industry's golden age before the internet and lately AI wrecked it, at first by ripping the economic bottom out of it when everything went online and more recently, with LLMs, and...well, that’s a rant for another day.
As an ex ad agency person, I had some good contacts and some good clients. Holsten Pils ads with Denis Leary from back in the day? We researched them, working closely with the ad agency and helped get them on air. Volkswagen’s famous campaign – we were their agency’s house researchers. Amnesty International UK’s communications strategy? A lot of that came from me. And – not so proud of this one, but wow did it pay the bills – we did stacks of work for megabusiness, Procter & Gamble, competing with and beating some of the world’s largest research companies in pitches for work.
And Disney, which is what this post is about. Not the cartoons or theme parks bit – the theatrical part. If you’re scratching your head a bit – think of massive West End shows like Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Frozen or Aladdin. They run all over the world and make a stone-cold fortune for the business. The Lion King is easily the biggest grossing musical in history. It’s played in 18 cities worldwide and made a staggering $11.5 billion in ticket sales (by comparison, the world’s highest grossing movie, Avatar, has grossed $2.9 billion).
I worked on many Disney productions and co-productions over the years, but the lion’s share, to coin a phrase, of the work went on The Lion King. I worked on their communications strategy for the show initially when it launched in London, with the Disney team and their agency, on promotional and advertising material. The ads themselves were always pretty straightforward, but the sheer energy of working with the people from Disney who were responsible for this extraordinary show was a joy to connect with.
The show was going to Australia in 2004, first to Sydney and then to Melbourne. To launch it over there they needed research to explore local communications angles, and I was asked to do the work. This was a huge compliment – Australia isn’t short of researchers, and their local company could easily have found one – but the global team needed a safe pair of hands they trusted and with a specialism in this kind of work that was quite rare, so I ended up in a business class cabin of a Qantas A380 on my way to Sydney. I’m a total junkie for stuff like that, and regarding myself as the mist fortunate researcher on the planet, I enjoyed the long flight. It deposited me at my destination at about 2.30am.
We’re getting close to where the song comes in. Stay with me.
I took a taxi to my hotel, a Marriott. Arriving without much idea where in the city I was I checked in and went up to my room on the 17th floor. The curtains were wide, clearly hiding a picture window and closed. So wondering what my room might be looking at, I drew them back, at about 4.15am.
And there, right in front of me, lit up in a silent city in the middle of the night was the most glorious, extraordinary view of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, on either side of Circular Quay. It was completely unexpected. My jaw literally dropped open. I will always remember that moment.
The song? The next day (I’d arrived a couple of days early to deal with the jet lag – a bit) I found myself browsing in a HMW record store and I came across a Ministry of Sound compilation containing a gorgeous, muted, deeply chilled remix of Lola’s Theme. I think I probbaby bought it because there was something else on it that I spotted. I listened to it on my Discman (remember them?) and it became the song, the soundtrack, of that whole trip.
No big analysis of the song this time. It actually samples an intro from a 1982 soul song, and the chorus I gather was also ‘borrowed’. I knew nothing of that – in fact I didn’t really know the original (which I now love too) that well either, despite it being massive.
The trip went really well. I did my work, went to Melbourne and did some there too, and grabbed a few days in Singapore on the way home (where I'd spent some of my childhood – my first time back for almost 40 years). I felt so lucky to be able to do this kind of job. Utterly blessed.
I carried on working for Disney for another 6 years or so. They stuck by me after my transition – most of my clients ditched me, ashamed or embarrassed oir something, but they and Amnesty stayed loyal – and in 2009 I was invited to The Lion King's10th anniversary party in London. It was a fantastic night; I remember seeing many Simbas, young and not so young, past and present actors in the role, busting out their moves on the dancefloor. They could really dance - as you'd expect. By then I’d been over to New York for Disney and done a project for the US team on the Broadway production too.
I loved Australia, even though I’d only been able to spend a week there and much of that was taken up with the project. I vowed to get back. I finally managed it with a brilliant three weeks in Adelaide in 2024 when I went on a training course for my new role having left the world of research. I will be back again – there’s so much of the country I want to see with my new partner – and if Sydney’s on the itinerary (and it likely will be), Lola’s Theme will definitely be on the playlist.
As an ex ad agency person, I had some good contacts and some good clients. Holsten Pils ads with Denis Leary from back in the day? We researched them, working closely with the ad agency and helped get them on air. Volkswagen’s famous campaign – we were their agency’s house researchers. Amnesty International UK’s communications strategy? A lot of that came from me. And – not so proud of this one, but wow did it pay the bills – we did stacks of work for megabusiness, Procter & Gamble, competing with and beating some of the world’s largest research companies in pitches for work.
And Disney, which is what this post is about. Not the cartoons or theme parks bit – the theatrical part. If you’re scratching your head a bit – think of massive West End shows like Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Frozen or Aladdin. They run all over the world and make a stone-cold fortune for the business. The Lion King is easily the biggest grossing musical in history. It’s played in 18 cities worldwide and made a staggering $11.5 billion in ticket sales (by comparison, the world’s highest grossing movie, Avatar, has grossed $2.9 billion).
I worked on many Disney productions and co-productions over the years, but the lion’s share, to coin a phrase, of the work went on The Lion King. I worked on their communications strategy for the show initially when it launched in London, with the Disney team and their agency, on promotional and advertising material. The ads themselves were always pretty straightforward, but the sheer energy of working with the people from Disney who were responsible for this extraordinary show was a joy to connect with.
The show was going to Australia in 2004, first to Sydney and then to Melbourne. To launch it over there they needed research to explore local communications angles, and I was asked to do the work. This was a huge compliment – Australia isn’t short of researchers, and their local company could easily have found one – but the global team needed a safe pair of hands they trusted and with a specialism in this kind of work that was quite rare, so I ended up in a business class cabin of a Qantas A380 on my way to Sydney. I’m a total junkie for stuff like that, and regarding myself as the mist fortunate researcher on the planet, I enjoyed the long flight. It deposited me at my destination at about 2.30am.
We’re getting close to where the song comes in. Stay with me.
I took a taxi to my hotel, a Marriott. Arriving without much idea where in the city I was I checked in and went up to my room on the 17th floor. The curtains were wide, clearly hiding a picture window and closed. So wondering what my room might be looking at, I drew them back, at about 4.15am.
And there, right in front of me, lit up in a silent city in the middle of the night was the most glorious, extraordinary view of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, on either side of Circular Quay. It was completely unexpected. My jaw literally dropped open. I will always remember that moment.
The song? The next day (I’d arrived a couple of days early to deal with the jet lag – a bit) I found myself browsing in a HMW record store and I came across a Ministry of Sound compilation containing a gorgeous, muted, deeply chilled remix of Lola’s Theme. I think I probbaby bought it because there was something else on it that I spotted. I listened to it on my Discman (remember them?) and it became the song, the soundtrack, of that whole trip.
No big analysis of the song this time. It actually samples an intro from a 1982 soul song, and the chorus I gather was also ‘borrowed’. I knew nothing of that – in fact I didn’t really know the original (which I now love too) that well either, despite it being massive.
The trip went really well. I did my work, went to Melbourne and did some there too, and grabbed a few days in Singapore on the way home (where I'd spent some of my childhood – my first time back for almost 40 years). I felt so lucky to be able to do this kind of job. Utterly blessed.
I carried on working for Disney for another 6 years or so. They stuck by me after my transition – most of my clients ditched me, ashamed or embarrassed oir something, but they and Amnesty stayed loyal – and in 2009 I was invited to The Lion King's10th anniversary party in London. It was a fantastic night; I remember seeing many Simbas, young and not so young, past and present actors in the role, busting out their moves on the dancefloor. They could really dance - as you'd expect. By then I’d been over to New York for Disney and done a project for the US team on the Broadway production too.
I loved Australia, even though I’d only been able to spend a week there and much of that was taken up with the project. I vowed to get back. I finally managed it with a brilliant three weeks in Adelaide in 2024 when I went on a training course for my new role having left the world of research. I will be back again – there’s so much of the country I want to see with my new partner – and if Sydney’s on the itinerary (and it likely will be), Lola’s Theme will definitely be on the playlist.
Other candidates for 2004? Well it wasn’t a vintage year, but one other standout song would be a very strong second place for me - the absolutely heartbreaking, mini epic that is Our Mutual Friend by The Divine Comedy.
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