Ray Davies recalls touring with The Beatles and ‘school bully’ John Lennon


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Kinks frontman Ray Davies has described dropping the band’s seminal hit ‘You Really Got Me‘ as being akin to ‘standing up to school bullies’ after they were on the wrong end of John Lennon‘s acerbic tongue during a stint on the road with The Beatles in the early Sixties.

Remembering a Bournemouth gig in August 1964 during an interview with Mojo as part of the magazine’s 20th anniversary celebrations, Davies said:

“We’d played with The Beatles in Bournemouth and John Lennon made a remark that we were only there to warm up for them, but we got a great reaction to ‘You Really Got Me’. It was an early validation that we had something that stood up for us, like being bullied in school and having something that was bigger than the bully, it was that sort of feeling.”

By August 1964 The Beatles had already secured their place at the summit of the pop pyramid, while The Kinks were just about to make their own mark in the UK with ‘You Really Got Me‘ and, a little later, ‘All Day and All Of The Night‘.


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2 Comments

  1. bob lassiter 2 February, 2014
  2. Russo 6 October, 2016