The real reason behind Jimmy Page’s issue with The Kinks: “He was very jealous”
One night, there was a girl who went out to a gig in Piccadilly. What she was wearing or how she actually looked remains a mystery, but her impact on music is definitive, as this is the woman who inspired The Kinks’ classic ‘You Really Got Me’. Ray Davies spotted her across the room and was immediately attracted to her. The two never spoke, but she became his muse for the track that would eventually change the shape of music.
“I was playing a gig at a club in Piccadilly, and there was a young girl in the audience who I really liked,” recalled Davies, “She had beautiful lips. Thin, but not skinny. A bit similar to Françoise Hardy. Not long hair, but down to about there [points to shoulders]. Long enough to put your hands through… Long enough to hold. I wrote ‘You Really Got Me’ for her, even though I never met her.”
The song is a classic, as it’s both catchy, animalistic and a lot of fun to listen to. It has also played a significant role in changing the shape of music as we know it, as the power contained within that singular A chord showed musicians the power in simplicity, played with energy. Arguably, the current structure of a lot of rock music, which revolves around a few chords but played with attitude, manifested around the same time this song saw success.
The troubling situation that The Kinks found themselves in likely contributed to the excellent sound of the song. Their first few singles hadn’t performed, and their label was at risk of dropping them. Many in the band saw this as their final opportunity and so decided to push it to the limit when recording ‘You Really Got Me’. The result was the highly impactful track that we know and love today.
“This was a radical-sounding record,” said Steve Van Zandt, E Street Band guitarist who was largely influenced by the track, “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.”
There was a rumour that circulated for some time that Jimmy Page was responsible for the iconic guitar playing on this song. It was true that Page was responsible for a lot of studio work around the time The Kinks recorded this hit, and Page didn’t do anything to dispel the rumour; however, Ray Davies confirmed that it wasn’t true. He also said that he believes Page let the rumour gain so much traction because the Led Zeppelin guitarist was jealous of the band.
“I must say something about Jimmy Page; I like him. He’s a nice guy. But all this controversy about him playing on ‘You Really Got Me’ is utter nonsense,” said Davies, “The truth is, he was very jealous of the Kinks. When the Kinks had that hit, even the Yardbirds were jealous of us. We had taken the blues format and made a pop hit out of it. When you look at their first hit, ‘For Your Love’ had nothing to do with the blues.”
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