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You Really Got Me
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "You Really Got Me" | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
||
| Single by The Kinks | ||
| from the album The Kinks | ||
| Released | August 4, 1964 | |
| Recorded | July, 1964 | |
| Genre | Pop | |
| Length | 2 min 14 sec | |
| Label | Pye Records | |
| Writer(s) | Ray Davies | |
| Producer(s) | Kassner Music | |
| Chart positions | ||
|
||
| The Kinks singles chronology | ||
| You Still Want Me | You Really Got Me | All Day and All of the Night |
"You Really Got Me" is a rock song written by Ray Davies and performed by his band, The Kinks. It was released as the group's third single, in August 1964, and reached Number 1 on the UK singles charts the following month, staying there for two weeks. It was the group's breakthrough hit, and established them as one of the top British Invasion acts in the United States.
"You Really Got Me" was built around power chords, and was to prove heavily influential on later Rock and Roll musicians, particularly in the Heavy Metal genre. It is considered to be the prototypical heavy metal song. As critic Denise Sullivan of Allmusic writes, "'You Really Got Me' remains a blueprint song in the hard rock and heavy metal arsenal."[1]
For its era the song was raw and gritty, an edgy piece of otherwise straight guitar music with lyrics that hinted at pleading and mad passion. It was the instrumentation, however, which caught the ear - more adult than the early Beatles, it also preceded the Rolling Stones early fuzz guitar-driven songs.
The song was recorded by the Kinks in a number of styles in the summer of 1964 before the final sound was achieved. The group was under tremendous pressure for a hit from their record company Pye, after their two previous single releases failed to chart. Ray Davies in particular was stubbornly persistent in forcing the Kinks' management and record company to take the time and money needed to develop the record's landmark sound and style. Davies' efforts on behalf of the career-making song effectively established him as the leader and chief songwriter of the Kinks.
The influential distortion sound of the guitar track was created after guitarist Dave Davies sliced the cone of his amplifier with a razor blade (though an alternative version says that he poked knitting needles into the amplifier, Davies himself says he sliced it with a razor blade). The amplifier was affectionately called "little green," after the name of the amplifier made by the Elpico company, and purchased in Davies' neighborhood music shop, slaved into a Vox AC-30.
The guitar solo on the recording is the source of one of the most controversial and persistent myths in all of rock and roll: that it was not played by the Kinks' lead guitarist Dave Davies, but by session player Jimmy Page. Nonetheless the solo was undoubtedly played by Dave Davies (then 17 years old), as everyone involved in the July 1964 recording sessions for the track has always maintained. Although an effective and integral part of the song, it is essentially a faster variation of the Louie, Louie guitar solo, and did not represent a great technical or stylistic achievement on par with that song's driving three-chord rhythm backing (save for the method of playing the pentatonic scale in a manner that "seems" sloppy; this technique is a major watershed in the history of rock and roll, arguably an influence on punk rock). However, the story has circulated for decades that the solo was played by Jimmy Page, who later joined The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin. Page was in fact hired by Kinks producer Shel Talmy as a session rhythm guitarist on a handful of tracks on the Kinks' first album, but those sessions took place several weeks after the "You Really Got Me" session. Page has never publicly taken credit for playing the song's guitar solo, going so far as to state in a 1977 interview that "I didn't play on 'You Really Got Me' and that's what pisses him [Ray Davies] off." Rock historian and author Doug Hinman makes a case that the rumor was begun and fostered by the established UK Rhythm and Blues community, many of whose members were resentful that an upstart band of teenagers such as the Kinks could produce such a powerful and influential blues-based recording, from seemingly out of nowhere. The rumor gained huge momentum in the 1970s after Page rose to legendary prominence with the band Led Zeppelin, with his legions of fans eager to believe he played a major role in a prototypical heavy metal song.
At least one external musician did however play session work on "You Really Got Me" - keyboardist Jon Lord of Deep Purple. He played piano on this song and probably some organ on the rest of the album. As quoted on fan site Pictured Within, Lord comments: "All I did was plink, plink, plink. It wasn't hard". Session drummer Clem Cattini also appears to have played some role in its recording.
According to Ray Davies, the song's characteristic riff came about while working out the chords of The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie." The Kinks' use of distorted guitar riffs continued with songs like "All Day and All of the Night," "Tired of Waiting for You," and "Set Me Free," among others. Pete Townshend of The Who has stated that their first single, "I Can't Explain," was an intentional soundalike of The Kinks' work at the time (The Who were also produced by Shel Talmy at that time).
The Kinks would go on to perform successfully together as a band for over 30 years, through many musical styles, and they would always play "You Really Got Me" in concert. Both Ray and Dave Davies still perform the song in solo shows, generally as a closing number. The song appears at number 82 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. In early 2005, the song was voted the best British song of the 1955-1965 decade in a BBC radio poll. In March 2005, Q magazine placed it at number 9 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. This song has been performed on American Idol by Ryan Starr (Season One) and Sanjaya Malakar (Season Six).
| Preceded by "Have I The Right?" by The Honeycombs |
UK number one single "You Really Got Me" September 10, 1964 (2 weeks) |
Succeeded by "I'm Into Something Good" by Herman's Hermits |
The 13th Floor Elevators covered the song in 1966. A live version is included in the 2003 re-release of their album The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators.
New Zealand blues-rock band The Human Instinct included a slow blues version of the song on their 1969 debut album, Burning Up Years. It also appeared as the B-side of their single "I Think I'll Go Back Home" the same year.
On Mott The Hoople's debut album, they did an all instrumental cover of the song. On their second album, they added the vocal track.
In 1978, Robert Palmer released his solo album Double Fun, a collection of Caribbean-influenced rock which included a down-tempo and syncopated cover of "You Really Got Me". The album reached the Top 50 on the US Billboard charts.
Probably the most famous cover version of the song, US hard rock band Van Halen covered the song for their 1978 debut album. It was a popular radio hit, and jumpstarted the band's career, just as it had done for The Kinks 14 years earlier. This version was the soundtrack of the 1995 award-winning commercial Toys in which GI Joe, driving a toy Nissan 300ZX, entices Barbie out on a date, much to Ken's dismay.
A cover of the Van Halen version of this song is playable in the PlayStation 2 game, Guitar Hero II, and was also used in the film Private Parts (1997 film).
Dalek I Love You's version, on their 1979 album Compass Kumpas is very different from the original; it features a mixture of A cappella vocals and synth-pop instrumentation.
Oingo Boingo's 1981 version differed markedly from the original, similar in style to Devo's twisted covers.
Sly & the Family Stone covered the song in their last studio album, Ain'T But The One Way.
In 2006, New Zealand radio station The Edge created New Zealand's first ever manufactured boy band in a promotion. This group released one single in their promised "15 seconds of fame", a cover version of "You Really Got Me". This single spent one week at number one in the RIANZ New Zealand Singles Chart.
The female electro punk duo Robots in Disguise covered You Really Got Me on their 2006 album, Get RiD!.
Two leading czech indie acts, Roe-Deer and The Prostitutes joined their forces and produced a cover of this song for Staropramen commecial.