Issue No. 7 of Johnny Be Good features one of 45 songs from the book, Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop, by Marc Myers. Read John Pearson's review here. Order from Amazon here. Listen to the book on Libro (9 hours, 34 minutes). Each blog will spotlight a song from the book and a guest blogger’s color commentary. Click here to subscribe. Each issue of Your Weekly Staff Meeting will highlight the latest blog.
“The Bad Speaker of My Parents' Record Player"
Today’s blogger is "Production Guy."
Title: “You Really Got Me”
Singers: The Kinks
Released: August 1964
I APPRECIATED THIS:
Editor’s Note: This unsolicited review was received by email from "Production Guy," but I was not able to verify the identity or veracity of the guest blogger. But it’s so good—I’m running with it. Enjoy!
I picked “You Really Got Me” because of its gritty sound. All you need to know about me is that I’m what megachurches call “a production guy.” I always wanted to be a “program guy,” but I never made the cut. So maybe reviewing rock and roll songs is my calling? (And thanks to John Pearson’s blog for considering this for publication.)
The reason I’m writing under a “pen name” (maybe I should call it my “job title” name) is because of what I’m about to tell you.
As the “production guy” at church, my most fun time is waiting until the worship band exits after rehearsals—and I’m all alone, on stage, with all those instruments. Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve been known to fire up the sound system—and let it blast to kingdom come (can I say that?).
So reading that the Kinks rejected the “polished sound” and “upbeat tidiness of pop music” of other British bands, made me think—“That’s my kind of music.” Read on:
According to the book, “When the band recorded ‘You Really Got Me’ in July 1964, they wanted the song to have an edge, complete with power guitar chords and fuzzy distortion. They wanted the record to have the same coarse sound they projected while performing at London clubs that had poor sound systems.” But when their label tried to "clean up" their first recording, “…the Kinks demanded to go back into the studio to ‘dirty’ up the sound by rerecording it.”
The lyrics aren’t much, but the first 10 seconds of the song hooked me. “You Really Got Me” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. [Editor's Note: for more, read Marc Myers’ column on the Kinks in the WSJ, Oct. 29, 2014.]
Listen to “You Really Got Me,” sung by the Kinks.
MY FAVORITE QUOTES:
• “In 1964, the popularity of the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five left little room for another cheery boy band. In fact, prior to their first American tour in June 1964, the Stones positioned themselves as the anti-Beatles…”
• Ray Davies (Kinks lead singer and songwriter) tells Marc Myers, “I wanted the song to sound like a repetitive Gregorian chant over a blues, so I pushed for a dirtied-up guitar sound. I also wanted a distorted bass sound with an echo effect, the way Ray Charles’s electric piano sounded on ‘What I’d Say’ coming through the bad speaker of my parents’ record player.”
Ha! A week ago, I suggested to the worship team that for Lent they might try a Gregorian chant sound for one of their praise songs. One guy asked, “What’s a Gregorian chant?”
WHERE WERE YOU WHEN YOU FIRST HEARD THIS SONG?
I’m a child of the 60s and I can relate to the record player “bad speaker” comment. As a kid, I was fascinated with radio, record players, and recording studios. Our cool “dude” of a band teacher in junior high claimed he played saxophone in a band—but we could never confirm that. Anyway, I think it was Mr. Jenkins who first played “You Really Got Me” when I was hanging around after band practice.
JOHNNY BE...GOOD, BETTER, OR BEST?
• GOOD: Lead guitarist Dave Davies tells Myers about the “small teal space-age Elpico amp” he had bought at a radio shop for 10 quid (about $12.50 in U.S. dollars). “I had just learned to shave, so I took one of my razor blades and slashed up the amp’s speaker cone. I had no idea whether what I had done would work, but when I plugged in the guitar, I was blown away by the raucous sound that came out. It was gritty.”
• BETTER: Shel Talmy, the producer, talks about the day they recorded the song. “At IBC I placed Ray in an isolation booth so the instruments wouldn’t bleed into his vocal. For the drums, instead of using four mikes, which was standard then, I used twelve, to isolate all of the various percussion sounds.”
• BEST: “To try to emulate [the electric piano sound of Ray Charles], I punched a few holes in Pete’s preamp speaker with my mother’s knitting needle.”
We can't verify that this is a photo of "Production Guy," but this is the photo he submitted. Here's the bio he emailed to us:
THIS ISSUE'S COMMENTARY BY "Production Guy"
"Trust me—I’m thinking about bringing knitting needles and razor blades to the next worship band rehearsal! But realistically, probably not. Our finance guy keeps cutting our equipment budget. (But I notice the senior team members drive some pretty nice cars—so not everything gets cut apparently. Just sayin’.)
"As I mentioned, I’m writing this incognito because I love this book and, I guess, it’s a creative outlet for me—since they don’t let me “on stage” during church services. (When did “stage” replace “platform” in our vocabulary? Not sure that’s a Jesus idea.)
"Would love to tell you more about myself: the worship song lyrics that have been rejected by music publishers, the drum solo I did in junior high, and more—so, hopefully, Pearson will need another guest blogger down the road."
NEXT UP! Song #8 of 45: “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling’” by the Righteous Brothers.
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It all started in 2023, when John Pearson read and reviewed a "fun" book, Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop, by Marc Myers. Read John's review here. Order from Amazon here. Listen to the book on Libro (9 hours, 34 minutes).
If you'd enjoy being one of 45 guest bloggers, along with John Ashmen, Dick Nelson, Suzy West, Dave Barton, Paul Palmer, Bill Butterworth, Jim West, Melinda Schmidt, Jason Pearson, Gary Rea, Callista Dawson, and others, read more here and contact John Pearson. Click here to subscribe to this blog and enjoy the toe-tapping musicians in each weekly blog post—reminding you of these iconic songs of yesteryear.