"You Really Got Me" is a song written by Ray Davies and performed by his band The Kinks. Released as the group's debut single in August 1964, it got to Number 1 in the UK charts the following month and stayed there for two weeks.

For the era, this was a raw, gritty, and edgy piece of otherwise straight guitar music complete with lyrics which hinted at pleading and mad passion. It was, however, the instrumentation which would catch the ear - more adult, less female-friendly than The Beatles and pre-empting the toughness of contemporaries the Rolling Stones, who were emerging at the same time but had initially relied on stage flair and cover versions to establish themselves.

The guitar track was the domineering force, with a lick or riff consisting of two power chords working through the whole song, which itself measured in at little more than two minutes. The vocal, meanwhile, was delivered without a smile and with no little hint of menace. The riff:

One critic would later describe the song as "the track which invented heavy metal." It was the first hit song built around power chords (Walser 1993, p.9).

The Kinks would go on to have almost a decade's worth of hits, including two more UK Number 1s, although they never hit the top in the USA. Davies is now feted as one of the best songwriters of his or future generations and is still an active writer and performer to this day.

Source

• Walser, Robert (1993). Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music. Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 0819562602.