You Really Got Me

Ray Davies wrote it at the piano in March 1964. It came out in Britain on 4 August 1964 on Pye, backed with "It's All Right", and in America on 2 September on Reprise. Talmy's first mix buried the guitar, so a re-recording at IBC Studios was funded. Drums were played by the session man Bobby Graham and piano by Arthur Greenslade. Dave Davies cut the speaker cone of an Elpico amplifier, which he used with a Vox AC-30. The long-running story that Jimmy Page played the solo is denied by Talmy, by Page himself in 2014 and by Avory.

The song is about lust, and Dave called it a love song for street kids. It spent two weeks at number one in Britain and reached number 7 in America. Van Halen covered it in January 1978, reaching number 36 with Ted Templeman producing. Rolling Stone ranks it at number 82 of its greatest songs, and it entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

On the debut album Kinks, Bobby Graham played drums and Arthur Greenslade piano on it, and an unknown session musician played rhythm guitar.

Live

It is the most played Kinks song on setlist.fm, with 563 logged performances. The live version on One for the Road was recorded on 6 March 1979 at Lowell Memorial Auditorium. In December 2015 Ray joined Dave onstage to play it.