Wednesday, April 19, 2006

You Really Got Me, by the Kinks



I must have been six or seven when I first noticed it. The wall is not there anymore, substituted now for the parking lot of a corporate broadcasting giant, but the graffitti still remains fresh on my mind. Scribbled hastily, but very stylishly, the white graffitti on the grey or black wall read: Manchuria Rock: De veras me atrapaste, followed by the drawing of a magic mushroom. I was intrigued by the scribbling on the wall on the way home. It kept me awake at night: "de veras me atrapaste". There was, beyond the subversive nature of a writing on the wall, a very seductive, mesmerizing effect in those words. De veras me atrapaste. You really got me. I knew, deep inside my child's heart, that those were words that could only come out of a tormented soul. There was a sense of inevitability, of a manifest destiny one could not avoid. Love as fate, but also as punishment. When I finally listened to the song, I was, literally, trapped. The energy of its first two riffs, joined by the sparkling light of the rusty percussion, and the crazy, out of control guitar solo around the minute and a half, were to me the musical translation of love sickness. Desire as imprisonment; love as a chosen prison. The song was, needless to say, catchy, but it was, in no way, simplistic as the other tunes I was used to listening to on the radio. There was something paradoxically liberating in this anthem. It summarized my experience; trapped in a mutant body; hating my looks and my guts, helplessly in love with a girl who would never even look at me. The song was the a priori and the a posteriori of it all; pure love and desire and passion and lust made music and distortion and whining cries. In-love and out-of-love, this is the song that, for me, started it all. Now, when I listen to it, watching the old, dust-kissed dark seven-inch record spin, I still remember that graffitti, written by god-knows-what tortured soul of an upscale suburb, perhaps the everlasting S.O.S from an unknown, lonely and heartbroken hipster very far away from home.





You don't know what love is if you haven't listened, truly, to this song:



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6 comments:

Manolo said...

ese rift del inicio que solo la guitarra de Ray Davies y una navaja pueden lograr, de verdad te atrapan.

mike said...

Esta rola es una chingonería. Y pensar que eran los 60s cuando los kinks ya sonaban así. Fuck those hippy chants!!!! We want rock and roll!!!! Deberas que la mayoría de los grupitos ingleses nuevos le deben mas de la mitad de su identidad... coff coff the libertines coff coff....

Small Ball of Anger said...

An excellent post!!

Couldn't have put it better!

elrc30 said...

A ver, este texto me impulsa a ralizar una corrección, no obstante lo grandioso de la canción de los kinks (you really got me)quiero aclarar que el texto "manchuria rock: deberas me atrapaste" es el título de una película de cine experimental mexicano, realizada por alumnos de la carrera de comunicaciones de la UAM XOCHIMILCO por ahí del año 85 ú 86, misma que pude ver en la CINETECA. lo recuerdo bien ya que la canción que se cantaba a la mitad de la cinta decia: " yo lo único que quiero es rockanrolear contigo y al acabar la fiesta ir a coger contigo" frase que a mis 13 años quedó grabada irremediablemente. El hongo que se dibujó después de "manchuria rock: deberas me atrapaste" es porque en la película los protagonistas se drogaban con hongos alucinógenos. espero sus comentarios
elrc30.alterno@gmail.com

evans said...

Lo que sea, pero yo tambien recuerdo que cuando tenia como once años vi esa peli en la tele y me gustó un chooorrrroooo, y eso que no sabia de nada del mundo ...no la he olvidado... esta muy chida

momozila said...

Yo lo único que quiero es rockanrolear contigo y al acabar la fiesta ir a coger contigo!!!!!!!!! claro yo tambien vi la peliculaaaaaaa landa se llamaba lucifugo y el viaje de hongos en miel..lo recuerdo muy bien y todo con claridad exepto el nombre de la peliculaaa.....