From jazz to punk: the birth of The Kinks and ‘You Really Got Me’
Try as we may to spread the responsibility of songwriting genius of any given decade to multiple artists, there is always one riff that goes on to define the sound of an era. And while The Beatles were largely responsible for leading the creativity of the 1960s, the riff responsible for soundtracking it belongs to The Kinks.
‘All Day and All of the Night’ was the definitive riff of this colourful new cultural era and gave an optimistic soundtrack for this legion of free-thinking kids to get behind. The song, in many ways, was the perfect gateway for the band, and once fans passed through it, there was a myriad of more experimental music for these hungry fans to feast on.
Despite rivalling ‘All Day and All of the Night’ as a pop smash hit for The Kinks, ‘You Really Got Me’ was designed to be that very song. Hoping that it would provide something of a sidestep from bona fide rock, the London band created it under the stewardship of jazz icons from the era and attempted to make one of the first, true jazz-fusion tracks.
“When I came up with ‘[You Really Got Me]’ I hadn’t been writing songs very long at all,” Ray said about the song’s origins. “It was one of the first five I ever came up with. I wanted it to be a jazzy-type tune, because that’s what I liked at the time.”
Ray Davies’ brother and bandmate Dave remarked how his love of American jazz, and in particular, the musician Gerry Mulligan, inspired the melody of ‘You Really Got Me’ to a point where it was originally written around a saxophone hook. Upon playing it to the record label, the band had explained how the song could develop into a rock tune, for most of them couldn’t see past the simple jazz profile of its instrumentation.
Ray Davies explained, “They had heard us play it live and thought there was no way we could ever make a record out of it,” he said, explaining that his brother then stepped in to play the sax line with a fuzzed-out guitar, which they all finally agreed “took the song a step further.”
Producer Shel Talmy joined the brothers in mourning for the original version of the song. He explained that prior to the label’s involvement, the saxophone encouraged a much sultrier performance of the song that took it into bluesier realms, which ultimately would have developed Davies’ legacy as a songwriter.
“If you picture the riff, you’ll see that it goes really well with blues,” Talmy comments. “It was extremely good and a totally different concept from the one that eventually came out. We all liked it at the time, decided to try it the other way, and then decided the later version should be the one that came out.”
Ultimately, the decision paid off, for ‘You Really Got Me’ became one of the career-defining hits for the band. But nevertheless, there is an alternative reality where their career took even more experimental realms, and given the rumours surrounding this song’s first draft, I’m certain that would have been an equally successful path.
