Every time I listen to this track from 1964, it's impossible not to hear the blueprint for everything from The Stooges to The Sex Pistols in that distorted guitar riff. To me, it's the aural equivalent of Ben Franklin tying his infamous key to a kite in a lightning storm: he might not have known what the outcome was going to be, but he knew the future would make your hair stand on end.
Story goes, Kinks frontman/songwriter Ray Davies and his brother/sparring partner, guitarist Dave Davies, would listen to records on their home hi-fi with the volume turned all the way up, which caused the speakers to distort. So they wondered if they could get the same crackle out of a guitar amp.
Depending upon which Davies brother you choose to believe, Ray claims he stuck a knitting needle in the speaker cone of his brother's amplifier; Dave says he slashed up the cone of his amp with a razor blade so that the sound produced a "jagged roar." Either way, a new sound was born.
What I find even more interesting, though, is where Ray claims he got the inspiration for the song.
In a 2014 interview with NPR's Terry Gross, he says he was studying fine art and filmmaking in art school and was just dabbling in music as a hobby, when a mentor of his encouraged him to starting writing his own songs. So he began trying his hand at coming up with R&B riffs, drawing upon his affection of American country blues, particularly bluesman Big Bill Broonzy. But then, he says his experience singing Gregorian chants in his school choir started creeping in, and that sound influenced the outcome of the verses: Girl, you've really got me going...
"So it evolves through a mixture of blues and my sort of English, quirky, subliminal influence of being in a choir doing Gregorian chant, which definitely comes through if you really think about it."
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