WCSX Classic Cuts : You Really Got Me
WCSX Classic Cuts
The Kinks: “You Really Got Me”
The Hook: It really got him confident.
Album: You Really Got Me (U.S. title), in the U.K. their debut album was simply titled Kinks.
Year: 1964
Writer: Ray Davies
Stats: Peaked at number-seven on the Billboard Hot 100 (but topped the U.K. charts).
Background: Ray Davies tells us that the process of making “You Really Got Me” would have a profound and lasting effect on him.
Kinks frontman Ray Davies on their first hit, “You Really Got Me.” OC:…confident bore [laughs]. :30
“They wouldn’t let me sing because I had a gap in my teeth, and they actually made me wear a cap on my teeth on my first TV show and Dave got all the close-ups. Then I sang “You Really Got Me” and it gave me the confidence. Then I didn’t like the record the way the producer made it and I did it myself the way I wanted it, using [producer] Shel Talmy, but making it the way I thought it should sound. It just made me grow up. That whole process was me, a really shy, interesting person turning into a confident bore.”
