(Credits: Far Out / KRLA Beat/Beat Publications, Inc.)
Fri 21 November 2025 11:00, UK
To cite anything as being the greatest rock and roll song of all time is a pretty egregious claim, but when you look at the sheer impact and endurance of an era-defining anthem like The Kinks’ ‘You Really Got Me’, it becomes much easier to reach that verdict.
After all, the band’s 1964 smash not only soundtracked the youthful rebellion of swinging sixties-era London, but it also opened the floodgates for the following decades of garage rock, punk, and alternative music in their entirety. With its short, sharp delivery, endless exuberance of proto-punk energy, and mod styling, the track acted as a rallying cry for Britain’s angry post-war generation, and its influence over the wider music scene of the time is utterly unavoidable.
Not only did the chart-topping single cement The Kinks’ position among the popular culture of the period, following on from a few flops earlier in their time at PYE, but it also spawned a wealth of similarly inclined rock and roll titans. Namely, without ‘You Really Got Me’, a certain Pete Townshend would never have penned The Who’s debut single, ‘I Can’t Explain’.
Reportedly, the Who guitarist wrote the track specifically to appeal to The Kinks’ producer, Shel Talmy, in an effort to emulate the same kind of sound and success; a decision which certainly paid dividends, effectively launching The Who’s entire career. Bizarrely, then, if PYE had had their way, Talmy would have never touched ‘You Really Got Me’, and rock and roll history might have taken a very different course.
After all, a masterpiece like ‘You Really Got Me’ takes time to perfect, and in 1995, Ray Davies told Goldmine, “We had different arrangements of that and the recorded version of that which went out and became a hit was after like six months to a year of playing it live.”
Seemingly, though, Davies had to fight tooth and nail to get the version of the song we all know and love released. According to the songwriter, the first version was too “Phil Spector. Echo and everything. My voice was gravelly, and it was all wrong.”
Years prior, in 1981, Davies told Creem, “It was recorded first at PYE with a producer who made it sound like Phil Spector, and there was no way that I was going to let them put it out.” At that time, though, The Kinks had yet to score any major hits, so the label had to be convinced to trust them on the matter. “I said I’d leave the music business first because I’d never write another song like it. In the end, they gave us £200 to re-record it.”
It was with that re-recording that the band joined forces with Shel Talmy, who stripped away all the phoney ‘Wall of Sound’ production style of the original mix, opting instead for the minimalistic production style and raw power that gave the song its rebellious, proto-punk quality.
The rest, as they say, is history: ‘You Really Got Me’ topped the UK singles charts upon its release, and broke into the top ten over on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, becoming a defining anthem of 1960s rock and setting the standard for countless other outfits in the years and decades that followed.
However, the track could have easily flopped, and The Kinks might have easily faded into obscurity or abandoned music altogether had PYE’s proposed first mix of the track been released instead of Talmy’s masterpiece.
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