"Lady Godiva's Operation" is a song by the Velvet Underground from their second album, White Light/White Heat (1968). The lyrics of the first half of the song, sung by John Cale, describe Lady Godiva; the lyrics of the second half, sung by Cale alternating with Lou Reed, are full of oblique, deadpan black humor and describe a botched surgical procedure, implied to be a lobotomy. Cale plays electric viola while Sterling Morrison plays bass, an instrument that he disliked, despite his competent abilities.
The song was covered by the Fatima Mansions as a single.
Lou Reed said of the song in 1973: "Listen to the lyrics of my early songs, 'Lady Godiva's Operation' was about a trans-sexual."