“If anybody could play like that, they must be crazy”: How Dave Davies wrote the savage solo for the Kinks’ breakthrough hit

Dave Davies on stage during 'The Kinks' concert at the Fête de l'Humanité, September 7, 1974.

You Really Got Me cemented the Kinks as pioneers of the British Invasion. Along with Dave Davies’ infectious guitar riff, the in-your-face solo – which, for decades, was wrongly attributed to a pre-Led Zeppelin Jimmy Page – was in fact written and played by Davies, thanks to a particularly fiery studio session.

“I know you know the mythology of who played the solo on You Really Got Me,” Billy Corgan says in conversation with Davies on his Magnificent Others podcast.