Ray Davies

“You Really Got Me,” for example, I first wrote when I was about 13 or 14. I originally wrote it more like a folk song about cotton pickers and things—my sister still has that tape somewhere. Then when we needed to record a single, I was playing it to Dave on the piano in my parents’ house. I said, “Here’s a song, ‘You Really Got Me,’ it’s very simple.” Dave said, “I like the tune.” Then Dave and I played it for Mick and Pete at rehearsal, and the other two got to hear it as a finished song.

After that I started doing a lot of notation. I found an old book the other day of actual notated melodies to a lot of songs that were on the first Kinks album [1964’s The Kinks]. So I had a fairly good idea of form and shape, but a lot of things were made up in the studio.

From Performing Songwriter Issue 109, May 2008

Category: In Their Own Words