The Kinks song Ray Davies hated being compared to The Beatles: “No, no bullshit”
It’s hard to imagine just how astronomical the Beatles were when they first took over America. The entire country changed after their performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, as every musician in the country stopped trying to make it as a solo artist and started trying to form their own band. The Beatles were more than a popular band; they were a significant moment that changed history in the US and the world.
Steve Van Zandt has spoken in great detail about how much he loved The Beatles and their impact nationwide. “It transformed America,” he said, “On February 8th, there were no bands in America; on February 9th, we had Ed Sullivan, and on February 10th, everybody had a band in their garage. It was literally overnight.”
When he was talking about some of his favourite songs from the British Invasion, he naturally spoke about the Beatles, but also mentioned The Kinks. He specifically spoke about their song ‘You Really Got Me’, which was a game-changing moment in rock music as it showed how simplicity in rock music can often work in a band’s favour. The chords they used were straightforward, but played with some fuzz and vigour, which made for an enticing listen.
“This was a radical-sounding record,” said Steve Van Zandt, “When this came on the top 30 radio, it was completely new to us. It went very high, as did ‘All Day And All Of The Night’. It was radical, and you have to give [producer] Shel Talmy credit for that.”
It wasn’t unusual for The Kinks to be mentioned in the same breath as The Beatles. Given that they were both making music around the same time. This was a problem for some bands, though, as even if they were making music that wasn’t similar to The Beatles, they were still compared quite frequently. You can see that it started to grate on some members of the band eventually, as Ray Davies’ interviews show him trying to distance himself from the band.
Even when the band were receiving compliments, Davies was quick to turn them down. For instance, one interviewer suggested that The Kinks were listened to as much as the Beatles once, and Ray Davies set the record straight. “No, we weren’t, never,” he said, “’Cause I think we were more unpopular than they were.”
The same thing happened with their music, as people listened to them and often connected what they were doing to The Beatles. Davies was also quick to set the record straight, saying that their influences went back a lot earlier than their contemporaries. When someone once said ‘I’ll Remember’ was reminiscent of The Beatles, Davies said that it was actually Buddy Holly who inspired them.
“’I’ll Remember’? No, no, bullshit. It’s a song written on the sixth. Buddy Holly! I wrote it on a harmonica in Seattle, which is in Washington.”
However, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t a fan of some of The Beatles’ music; he just didn’t think it was comparable to The Kinks. “I liked ‘Love Me Do’. When it came out, I thought it was an American surfing song. Totally unsurfer. But I did think it was an American group.”
