“All Day and All of the Night” (1964) – The Kinks * Written by Ray Davies * 45: “All Day and All of the Night” / “I Gotta Move” * Produced by Shel Talmy * Label: Pye (UK)/Reprise (US)
Top Ten broken-bottle mod rock that, along with “You Really Got Me,” presents the Kinks as potentially more primal than anything the greasers (their first audience’s cultural rivals) listened to. This one did have deceptively sophisticated chord changes, though, giving many once-confident garage combos pause. By the late sixties the Kinks had matured into English gentlemen, for whom the line “the only time I feel alright is by your side” actually did seem believable. The song reappeared as a self-referential musical motif in the band’s 1981 FM rock hit “Destroyer,” which would chart higher (#3) than its source (#7).