“You Really Got Me” by The Kinks

"You Really Got Me" was the Kinks' third single, a 1964 blast of Ray Davies songwriting that broke the band wide open and later turned up on their debut album, Kinks. Davies called it a love song for street kids, and that's exactly how it sounds: raw, lovesick and loud, with Ray himself out front on vocals.

Everything hangs on Dave Davies' riff, a snarling run of fifths and octaves pushed through so much distortion the amp seems about to give out. Power chords and fuzz like that were something new, and the players who later built heavy metal and punk took the lesson to heart. Dave plays the solo too, whatever the old tale about Jimmy Page claimed. Shel Talmy produced, with Pete Quaife on bass, Bobby Graham on drums and Perry Ford adding piano.

The song began life slower and bluesier, in the manner of Lead Belly and Big Bill Broonzy, and the band cut it twice before the second take became the single. It sat at number one in Britain on Pye for two weeks and reached number seven in America on Reprise, the record that put them in the front rank of the British Invasion.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.