# What was the first heavy metal song? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 4, 2012, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825 "2012-11-04T05:28:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/1 "2012-11-04T05:28:56Z")
I tried to convince my son that “I want you (She’s so Heavy)” was a good candidate, but he didn’t buy it. Thoughts? ---
**Author:** ![Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/soul_brother_number_two/32/3515_2.png) [@Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soul_Brother_Number_Two)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/2 "2012-11-04T05:32:06Z")
Great question. Iron Butterfly maybe? Vanilla Fudge? Deep Purple? ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/3 "2012-11-04T05:50:57Z")
Steppenwolf’s song “Born to be Wild” released in 1968 > [@](#): > > [It is sometimes described as the first heavy metal song, and the second verse lyric “heavy metal thunder” marks the first use of this term in rock music](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_to_Be_Wild) ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/4 "2012-11-04T05:53:05Z")
Probably one of the earliest examples of a heavy metal song would be _Manic Depression_, but really, the genre more coalesced rather than just sprang up. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/5 "2012-11-04T05:58:00Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > I tried to convince my son that “I want you (She’s so Heavy)” was a good candidate, but he didn’t buy it. > > Thoughts? Given that the term “heavy metal” was first used in reference to music in May 1968, and the Beatles song didn’t appear until 1969, that’s certainly not it. Wiki says[Blue Cheer’s cover of Summertime Blues](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU5uDozoSSM) from early 1968 is often regarded as the first true heavy metal recording. Steppenwolf’s Born to Be Wild, also early 1968, refers to a motorcycle as “heavy metal thunder,” but I don’t think the song itself is quite heavy metal. Iron Butterfly’s album In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida from mid-1968 may be the first heavy metal album. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/6 "2012-11-04T06:04:59Z")
How about [Helter Skelter](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMfkVGCU_BA)? It was released 22 November 1968. ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/7 "2012-11-04T06:07:46Z")
> [@BMax](#): > > Steppenwolf’s song “Born to be Wild” released in 1968 This is what I’ve always thought. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/8 "2012-11-04T06:07:47Z")
If you wanna go back even earlier, 1966’s [Beck’s Bolero](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vuj5toLeyY8), recorded by Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Keith Moon, and Nicky Hopkins, is a worthy contender. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/9 "2012-11-04T06:13:38Z")
Ode to Hexavalent Chromium… Oh \*that \*heavy metal. _You Really Got Me_ by the Kinks,1964 was one of the early songs by a popular band with a wide audience to incorporate heavy metal’s trademark power chords. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/10 "2012-11-04T06:28:52Z")
**Colibri** has it right: Blue Cheer’s cover of _Summertime Blues_ is widely regarded as the first real heavy metal song. It’s a blues-based song that the band rocked out loud as fuck (the band’s self-stated goal was to be “louder than God”) and the album title had the awesomely-unique-at-the-time but by-now-familiar-seeming Latin-esque name (_Vincebus Eruptum_). It’s a marvel of excess in almost every aspect of it’s rendering. Steppenwolf’s _Born To Be Wild_ is an awesome song, and is widely known as the first use of the phrase “heavy metal” in song lyrics, although the song is not considered by most to be a heavy metal song (although it does totally fuckin’ rock). The Beatles’ _Helter Skelter_ is in no way a heavy metal song, but it does mostly rock. Jeff Beck’s _Beck’s Bolero_ is also not a heavy metal song, although it does totally fucking rock. It could legitimately be described as a proto-prog rock song, although the lack of vocals really relegates it to “cool and influential but not monumentally important” status. Heavy metal as a genre really didn’t solidify until Black Sabbath came along and introduced the so-called “Devil’s Tritone” to rock music with their eponymous song. This song, with it’s musical and lyrical foci, laid the true blueprint for the genre. Of course, there was a lot more that went into the evolution of the genre, but that’s the very simple, basic explanation for how Heavy Metal car about. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/11 "2012-11-04T06:30:34Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > Ode to Hexavalent Chromium… Oh \*that \*heavy metal. > > _You Really Got Me_ by the Kinks,1964 was one of the early songs by a popular band with a wide audience to incorporate heavy metal’s trademark power chords. Heavy metal isn’t characterized by power chords; rock and roll is. Specifically, garage rock and punk rock are characterized by power chords. ---
**Author:** ![spymaniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@spymaniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spymaniac)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/12 "2012-11-04T06:38:40Z")
It’s all opinions of course, but I would say Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath Nothing before this song/album really encapsulated the true ethics or semantics of what heavy metal actually is (at least nothing that I’ve heard anyway). I would argue that heavy metal is not the same as merey ‘heavy’ music, or even ‘heavy rock’… Led Zeppelin are not heavy metal for example. The Kinks aren’t, The Beatles aren’t. Steppenwolf’s ‘Born to Be Wild’ is a bit too much of a free-spirited, fist raising “rebel anthem” to be heavy metal IMO. It’s perhaps ‘heavy’ enough to be classified as such, but it’s not dark or narcissistic enough in tone or atmosphere. edit - agreed snowboarder, got there first… ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/13 "2012-11-04T06:50:15Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Heavy metal isn’t characterized by power chords; rock and roll is. Specifically, garage rock and punk rock are characterized by power chords. [How Did Heavy Metal Rock Start](http://www.ehow.com/about_6127672_did-heavy-metal-rock-start_.html) > [@](#): > > Heavy metal’s first stirrings began amid blues-rock bands such as The Who and The Kinks. They used their guitar amplifiers to generate excessive amounts of feedback, as well as power guitar chords that later became a staple of heavy metal. Technological advances allowed them to record the reverbs and reproduce it on a record. The trend began to coalesce around a number of specific songs: the Beatles’ “Revolution” and “Helter Skelter,” The Yardbirds’ “Think About It” and Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” which featured a lengthy guitar solo. [Who Invented The Heavy Metal Genre](http://blogcritics.org/music/article/the-heavy-metal-genre-who-invented/) > [@](#): > > the Kinks came up with the one thing that defines metal, the one sound that launched a whole genre. Their innovation on “You Really Got Me” was this: they were the first to use a heavy fuzz riff guitar, which gave metal its most characteristic sound. [The Kinks - Wikipedia entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kinks) > [@](#): > > “You Really Got Me” has been described as “a blueprint song in the hard rock and heavy metal arsenal”. [Kinks Biography](http://www.keno.org/classic_rock/kinks_bio.htm) > [@](#): > > Their first two singles went nowhere. But when the third single “You Really Got Me” was released in '64, it shot up to number one on the UK charts and was a top ten hit in the US. Truth being, nobody really ever heard a guitar solo like the one Dave delivered on this song. It was rock’s first heavy metal song even though heavy metal was still a good five years from happening. [WereThe Kinks really an early heavy metal band?](http://www.630wpro.com/Article.asp?id=2178789&spid=39898) > [@](#): > > Could songs from The Kinks like “All Day and All of the Night” and “You Really Got Me” have given birth to heavy metal? Speaking to ABC News Radio, Ray Davies laughed as he said, “I don’t see it but I accept it.” Davies recalls a trip he took to Cleveland, Ohio and listening to a heavy metal radio station there. He says, “They put on ‘All Day and All of the Night’ and it stood up there with everything else that was being played.” > > Davies also recalls rehearsing “You Really Got Me” with Metallica the day before 2009’s 25th anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden. He says, “as soon as we started rehearsing I realized the connection between ‘You Really Got Me’ by the Kinks and the way Metallica played it. It was a direct descendant, if you like.” [Building A Library - The Kinks](http://www.kindakinks.net/misc/articles/library.html) > [@](#): > > The Kinks more or less accidentally invented heavy metal with the monster riff that powered the band’s #1 1964 single (1965 in America), “You Really Got Me.” That was the loudest, rawest piece of primal rock to ever top the charts at that point, and its echoes are still being heard in the countless generations of bands that have followed the noise. [The Kinks - A Heavy Metal Garage Band](http://www.datacomm.ch/tadam/kinks/kinks.html) > [@](#): > > But avant-gardist they were, a totally heavy electric rock n’ roll band that produced a cataclysmic wall of sound unlike anything that had ever been heard in rock before. The drummer, Mick Avory, played with the ferocity of a demolition derby-driver; Pete Quaife was among the first to use the electric bass a a truly metallic voice and Dave Davies - well, no one except Pete Townshend has ever chorded quite so majestically, and certainly not at the age of 17, when Dave was producing some of the most exciting solos ever recorded [The Earliest Origins of Metal Rock Music](http://askville.amazon.com/EARLIEST-ORIGINS-Metal-Rock-music/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=6026133) > [@](#): > > The Kinks essentially founded what would later become heavy metal with “You Really Got Me”. Dave Davies (guitarist, backup singer and occasional songwriter and lead singer for the Kinks) used to play a very cheap (they were pretty well broke) small amplifier around his living room growing up. > > Well the amp started to wind down and break, and Dave used pins (or something similar at least, might be paper clips, I’m going a bit off of memory) to hold the wiring together. Well eventually one day, the amp really started to wear down and he stuck the wires with the pins and a crazy feedback oriented sound came oozing out of his amplifier. > > Ray was busy working on their 3rd single You Really Got Me at the moment (or an earlier version of the song which the name escapes me, it’s on the 30 track Great Lost Kinks Record though)…and Dave started jamming with his electric guitar and new tweaked up amp, and voila, a new sound was discovered. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/14 "2012-11-04T07:10:00Z")
**Crazyhorse** , you really should read your own citations more carefully. The Kinks are not, and never were, a heavy metal band. The music they played was not, and never has been considered to be, heavy metal. None of the citations you provided contradicts what I wrote. Well, okay, I can see you making a claim that the cite from [ehow.com](http://ehow.com) contradicts me (about power chords). Forgive me if I don’t consider that much of a source. I stand by what I wrote: > [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Heavy metal isn’t characterized by power chords; rock and roll is. Specifically, garage rock and punk rock are characterized by power chords. ETA: Okay, the Kinks biography tries to make the claim that they wrote the first heavy metal song. No one else thinks that, or believes it. It’s a great song and it’s fantastically loud for it’s time. But it isn’t metal. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/15 "2012-11-04T07:18:09Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > **Crazyhorse** , you really should read your own citations more carefully. The Kinks are not, and never were, a heavy metal band. The music they played was not, and never has been considered to be, heavy metal. None of the citations you provided contradicts what I wrote. > > Well, okay, I can see you making a claim that the cite from [ehow.com](http://ehow.com) contradicts me (about power chords). Forgive me if I don’t consider that much of a source. > > I stand by what I wrote: The question isn’t about the definition of power chords - you are getting hung up in a terminology squabble and seem to be stuck on the minor mental task of accepting different terminology while understanding the larger point. The obvious intent of my post was to say, in the same spirit as most of the other posts in this thread, that in my opinion the Kinks were one of the earliest pioneers of heavy metal - \*before \*there was actually heavy metal. But please, continue with your opinions about what songs ‘totally fucking rock’ - it’s extremely informative and I’m sure you can think of a few dozen more if you put your mind to it. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/16 "2012-11-04T07:20:21Z")
With those two tunes, the Kinks pioneered elements of the Heavy Metal sound. But the band wasn’t simple-minded enough to be a Heavy Metal Band. They did other stuff, too… ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/17 "2012-11-04T07:25:28Z")
[Yahoo! Answers](http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090817074715AAyj6pU) says: \*\*"‘You Really Got Me’ by the Kinks "It sounds primitive compared to current or even 70’s heavy metal, but it was the first single ever to use power chords (at the time such a technique was rarely used). The band did many different takes of the song, but none of them succeeded until Dave Davies (the guitarist) took a razor blade and cut the cone of his amp, which made it sound sufficiently heavy. The lyrics also remind you of the kind of lust/obsession songs made in heavy metal. “Many people claim the first heavy metal song is either ‘I Can See For Miles’ by the Who or ‘Helter Skelter’ by the Beatles. These songs, however, were not released until 1967 and 1968 respectively. ‘You Really Got Me’ predates those songs by 3 (and 4) years, making it the first song that could classified as heavy metal.”\*\* ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/18 "2012-11-04T07:26:27Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > With those two tunes, the Kinks pioneered elements of the Heavy Metal sound. But the band wasn’t simple-minded enough to be a Heavy Metal Band. They did other stuff, too… Exactly. Couldn’t have said it better myself (though I did point to someone else saying it with a cite) > [@](#): > > However, to get back to who invented metal. If anybody can be said to have started heavy metal, it was the Kinks — Ray Davies and his boys. Yes, the Kinks, even though they themselves were too smart to be a heavy-metal band. So this much can be said for heavy metal: its origin is highly respectable. It may be played by dumb boy bands, but it wasn’t invented by a dumb boy band ---
**Author:** ![antechinus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@antechinus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antechinus)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/19 "2012-11-04T07:39:22Z")
I always think of it as Hendrix, but what about Mars, from [Holst’s The Planets](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Planets) from 1915? ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825/20 "2012-11-04T07:59:36Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > I stand by what I wrote: > > ETA: Okay, the Kinks biography tries to make the claim that they wrote the first heavy metal song. No one else thinks that, or believes it. It’s a great song and it’s fantastically loud for it’s time. But it isn’t metal. I see you made it to the second cite by edit time - keep reading. Those are just the top few results of a search that will return thousands that all agree. The ‘claim’ is widely accepted by almost the entire musical world. Incidentally, not that I would try to influence your obvious mastery of the subject but for posterity, a power chord can be defined [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_chord)and it’s relationship to metal (i.e. being a fundamental part of it and one of the defining elements of it) is explained [here](http://www.h2g2.com/approved_entry/A33659319). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-first-heavy-metal-song/639825.md?page=2)