Chords for Kinks Biography Part1

The 1960s brought swinging [A] London to Britain, the British invasion to America, and the music [Fm] of the Kinks to the world.
There are [E] very few bands in rock and roll history that denounced themselves with such devastating force.
By 1963, the Kinks would challenge [Am] the Beatles with hit songs, inventive music, and brilliant lyrics.
[F] I remember their first three singles [E] just completely killed me.
They outdo both what the Beatles and the Stones [C] are best at.
Success brought the foursome a wild rock and roll lifestyle, but [E] it also brought trouble,
damaging their trust in one another and [F] fueling creative issues they would never overcome.
We bought the illusion, you know what I mean?
We thought all these guys were friends.
[D] I know there's nothing wrong [Em] with speaking to the way you are today.
It's one of the most hateful things I've ever heard.
It's gonna make you a [E] star.
I'm still trying to figure that out. _ _ _ _ _
_ In [Gb] August of 1964, the [B] Kinks, made up of brothers Ray and Dave [G] Davis, Mick Avery and Peter Quaid,
released a song that would become part of rock and roll history.
You Really Got _ _ Me is one of the most influential songs ever in rock and roll.
It's about a kid [A] who's sexually attracted to a girl and they make out.
_ _ _ [D] _ It isn't about I want to hold your hand, you know, it's about sex.
And it just, it sounds like sex and it's sinister.
[C] _
_ [A] _ _ [G] The song, with its raw, primal beat, hit number one on the UK charts within a month.
It's hard to overstate the importance of that song to every [G] significant rock movement that followed.
It was just unbelievable.
It cut through everything.
I mean, even the Beatles it [D] cut through.
You can hear it in Van Halen.
You can hear it in punk rock.
You can hear it in, I don't know, some kid putting out an indie-like record today.
[E] You Really [Gb] Got Me steered popular music in a new direction,
and it was all powered by the Davis brothers and a small 8-watt amp purchased in a second-hand [N] shop.
In actuality, it was this little pig-nose amplifier that I think all of us used to kick every now and then as we went by
just to make it sound even more raunchy than it did.
[Em] What Dave did, he took this little [E] green amp, about this big.
[G] It was the one that we used to rehearse with.
And I [B] had messed around trying to get a decent sound out of [E] my amp.
I couldn't.
He [E] got like a bright sound or a bass sound.
That was it.
So I decided to experiment.
Ray said that Dave stuck a knitting needle through the speaker to make it distort.
And Dave says that what he did was he took a razor blade and sliced the speaker to make it distort.
And I plugged it in, and [C] it made that_
_ _rath_rath_rath_noise.
[G] Ah, it was fantastic.
Dave's guitar was snarling.
He was playing these bar chords.
And Ray's vocal was snarling.
And it was just like, wow, I didn't know you could have that emotion on a record.
It was a completely new sound, which was the toughest guitar sound that we had ever heard.
This was a new [G] sound from a new band that had formed just months before [Ab] in the town of Muswell Hill, London.
Well, the Kings began at [Db] the William Grimshaw [Ab] Secondary Modern School in Muswell Hill.
We [Eb] were at music [Ab] lessons.
One day, one of our teachers asked us if any of [Eb] us could play any instrument.
He said, because it would [Ab] be nice if you could play at the school dance.
And so it was Ray, Pete and myself [Ab] that really started to band.
We got together, and we found out that in actual fact it worked.
It really did work.
And we got up on the stage on the night of the school dance, and it went [Eb] down great.
We looked at each other and went, boy, [Ab] maybe we're on to something here.
We were like three baby musketeers, [E] with a love for music.
We really started rehearsing together.
And that always [G] went on at Ray and Dave's place.
[D] It's the famous front [F] room.
The Davis Home at [D] 6 Denmark Terrace served as [G] rehearsal and social hangout.
There [E] used to be parties every weekend, and everybody would [D] sing the songs that they liked.
[G] And the more we played out, [D] the better we got, and the more excited [D] we got.
We had various dramas.
[G] [D] Eventually we became Chris Mick.
When I first joined the band, [F] they were like a blues band, and they did a lot of blues numbers.
The [D] newly formed band played under a number of different names.
It would be the Ray Davis Quartet.
If it was Ray that got the [G] job.
If I [Dm] got the job, it would be the Quaife Quartet.
And [E] so Ray found out about that, and then he said, no, I knew them before you did, and it's the Ray Davis Quartet.
I think they used to change the name quite a bit.
My earliest [A] recollections are really playing gigs [G] in Muzzle Hill under a variety of names.
The [E] Ravens, which is my favorite name.
And then the band came across a name that would give them the commercial edge they needed.
I think someone suggested it in a pub.
You [Ab] know, said to Mick, you know, you know what you ought to be [E] called, don't you?
Bleeding Kinks.
You know, [C] they weren't called the Kinks for nothing.
It was a big part of their image [A] that they were kinky.
The idea that anything [G] goes.
The band's behavior reflected their outrageous new name.
Yeah, there's a famous story about the first real flare up in the group.
Dave says something that Mick takes exception to and Mick picks a cymbal up and throws it at Dave's head.
[E] Now, a cymbal is a big, heavy thing.
[G] That's going to take your head off if you throw it, right?
Yeah, that's how I had to put it [Em] upside down.
[G] He went down, the curtains closed.
End of the show, folks.
Fighting was definitely part of the band's DNA, [C] especially for brothers Ray and Dave, who had very different [D] personalities.
Because I was a [G] serious, deep thinking musician.
And there was this crazed kid with sort of [C] really big [Gb] hair playing these amazing [G] guitar licks.
And I thought, wow.
One wasn't like the other [A] anyway.
Dave used to, he used to be the showman.
Ray was [G] more reserved, the clever one, the poet and the writer.
We're not like each other either.
I'm not like everybody else, and I'm especially not like my brother.
[E] And vice versa.
It's [G] kind of an interesting dynamic.
And undoubtedly, that [G] gave the group some of the fire that it had.
If you look at footage of them playing, You Really Got Me, Ray is quite laid back while he's singing.
And over to his right is Dave Davis, raving it up [E] like no one before or since.
[Em] Even if they were trying to outdo each other, [A] it worked, you know?
That's a good combination.
[D] Oh, yeah!
_ _ _ _ _ _ The tension, [Eb] of course, was important.
I think when it got out of control, when it became damaging, [C] that's when it went wrong.
The [Eb] band's infighting, however, did not distract them from the success the Beatles were having in America.
We knew that we could open up America.
But in order to [Ab] do that, we had to be there.
In [E] February of 1964, the Beatles performed on the Ed Sullivan Show.
74 million Americans tuned in to witness the start of the British [D] invasion.
I've equated the Beatles on [N] Ed Sullivan and the whole British invasion, really, to a spaceship landing in Central Park.
I mean, it's that kind of impact.
That was the sound of the baby boom discovering itself.
The Beatles come to America and become a phenomenon unlike anything [E] before [Dm] or after.
They have 9,000 of the [G] top 1,000 songs.
It's not mathematically possible, but the Beatles rule the American charts and they rule the American teen [C] consciousness.
And there gets to be this hunger for [F] anything remotely Beatles-like.
You know, when we went home from Christmas vacation that year, the world was black and [G] white.
And when we came back in the beginning of January, the world was in color.
Everything was different after that, you know?
Like other British bands, the [Gb] Kinks wanted badly to get in on this exciting American [N] market.
There were lots of record companies and lots of other bands, obviously, who looked at the Beatles and said, you know, I want to do that too.
[Gb] The Kinks were well positioned to join the invasion.
[Gb] The question was, could these four teenagers pull their act together for America?
America was like a fantasy land to us.
And [Ab] so if we could go over there and [Gb] make it there, we've done