| Ray Davies wrote this with the help of his
brother (and Kinks guitarist) Dave. Ray played it for Dave on piano,
and Dave tried it on guitar. Their first version was 6-minutes long. |
| Dave Davies got the dirty guitar sound by
slashing the speaker cone on his amp with a razor blade. The
vibration of the fabric produced an effect known as "fuzz," which
became common as various electronic devices were invented to distort
the sound. At the time, none of these devices existed, so Davies
would mistreat his amp to get the desired sound, often kicking it.
The amp was a cheap unit called an Elpico. |
| Before they released this, The Kinks put out 2
singles that flopped. If this didn't do well, there was a good
chance their record label would have dropped them. |
| When the Kinks heard the first version they
recorded of this, they hated the results. It was produced by Shel
Talmy, their manager at the time, and Ray Davies thought it came out
clean and sterile, when he wanted it to capture the energy of their
live shows. Dave Davies girlfriend backed them up, saying it didn't
make her want to "drop her knickers." The Kinks' record company had
no interest in letting them re-record this, but due to a
technicality in their contract, The Kinks were able to withhold the
song until they could do it again. At the second session, Dave
Davies slashed his amp and Talmy produced it to get the desired live
sound. This is the version that was released. |
| Talmy thought the first version was good, and
also would have been a hit if it was released. This first version
was slower and had more of a Blues sound. |
| The Kinks didn't have a drummer when they
first recorded this, so Talmy brought in a session musician named
Bobby Graham to play. When they recorded this the second time, Mick
Avory had joined the band as their drummer, but Talmy didn't trust
him and made him play tambourine while Graham played drums. One
other session musician was used - Arthur Greenslade played piano. |
| Just before Dave Davies started his guitar
solo at the second recording session, his brother yelled to
encourage him. Dave got a little confused, but they had only 3 hours
of studio time so he kept playing. He pulled off the solo despite
the distraction. |
| The first line was originally "You, you really
got me going." Ray Davies changed it to "Girl, you really got me
going" at the suggestion of one of their advisers. The idea was to
appeal to the teenage girls in their audience. |
| Davies got the idea for the guitar riff from
"Tequila" by The Champs. |
| This was the first hit for The Kinks. It gave
them a lot of publicity and led to TV appearances, magazine covers,
and 2 gigs opening for The Beatles. They didn't have an album out
yet, so they rushed one out to capitalize on the demand. This first
album contained only 5 originals, with the rest being R&B covers. |
| Ray Davies wrote this with the intention of
making it big crowd-pleaser for their live shows. He was trying to
write something similar to "Louie Louie," which was a big hit for
The Kingsmen. |
| It was rumored that Jimmy Page, who was a
session musician at the time, played guitar on this. The band
strongly denies this. |
| Ray Davies: "I made a conscious effort to make
my voice sound pure and I sang the words as clearly as the music
would allow." |
| Ray Davies was 22 when they recorded this.
Dave Davies was 17. |
| A cover of this was the first single for Van
Halen in 1978. Eddie Van Halen would spend the next several years
developing new guitar riffs, and like Davies, was known to
manipulate his equipment to get just the right sound. |
| The powerful rhythm guitar riff was very
influential on other British groups. The Rolling Stones recorded
"Satisfaction," which was driven by the rhythm guitar, a year later. |
| The Who played this at many of their early
concerts. Their first single was "I Can't Explain" and was also
produced by Shel Talmy. The sound borrowed heavily from this, as
Pete Townshend played a dirty guitar riff similar to what Dave
Davies' recording. |
| The Kinks' next single was "All Day And All Of
The Night," which was basically a re-write of this, but was also a
hit. |
