Songfacts®:

• The B-side of The Kinks' hit "Sunny Afternoon," "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" was written by Ray Davies but sung by his younger brother Dave. It's a garage-rock howl of defiance and a direct declaration of independence from the tiresome business of fitting in. Ray originally had The Animals in mind for the track, but after they turned it down, The Kinks recorded it themselves. Switching up their normal routine, Ray handed the lead vocal to Dave instead of taking it himself.
• Ray Davies had spotted a rebellious edge in his brother that he felt was worth exploiting. "It's a song about being angry," he told Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air. "And I cast the song for him... I noticed a rebellious streak in my brother that was beyond my own. Let's put it politely. And I wrote a song about anger for him to sing."
  
  He added, with characteristic resignation: "Sometimes I don't write the songs, the songs write me."
• Dave Davies was thrilled with the result. "That song always stands out to me," he told Uncut. "It's defiant... the song is inspirational, I think, and today I still rate it as one of the best Kinks songs."
  
  He particularly liked its mix of vulnerability and raw power, describing it as full of "joy and hope and energy and life and positive aspects." Although Dave modestly said he played the 12-string guitar "badly" on the session, the instrument is one of the track's defining features.
• The title could almost serve as Ray Davies' personal motto. He traced the feeling back to his childhood in Muswell Hill, North London. "I always felt that way. But you also have to say to yourself that you're not going to be like other people," he told Mojo. "You have to search for the thing that will put you on a different journey. Which for me was music."
  
  Biographer Thomas M. Kitts borrowed the line for the title of his 2008 book, Ray Davies: Not Like Everybody Else.
• American producer Shel Talmy, who was also working with The Who around the same period, produced the track at London's Pye Studios on May 12, 1966, the day before the band recorded "Sunny Afternoon."
• "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" is the outlier of Ray Davies' 1966 run: It's the era's one raw, direct personal statement, the outsider's creed underneath all the character studies and social commentary such as "A Well Respected Man," "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion," and "Sunny Afternoon."
• Despite its lasting status, "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" was left off the band's 1966 album Face to Face. It first appeared on the 1967 UK compilation Sunny Afternoon, turned up in the US on The Great Lost Kinks Album in 1973, and was finally added as a bonus track on the 1998 CD reissue of Face to Face. It was an odd omission for a song that became a permanent fixture of their live set.
• The track got a major revival in 2004 when it played over the end credits of "Cold Cuts," a famous episode of The Sopranos. A live version plays as Tony Soprano walks away from his sister Janice's house after deliberately pushing her into a rage. Three of the show's writers told Ray Davies they had written the entire scene around the track. "Which is really a compliment for a punk from London," he told The Orange County Register.
• The song reached another generation when it featured in an Acura commercial. Ray told Fresh Air he welcomed the unexpected plug: "You know the great thing about it, if it brings music to a new audience, it's fine."
• California garage band The Chocolate Watchband recorded a cover for their 1968 album The Inner Mystique, while Australian outfit Jimmy and the Boys made it their debut single in 1979. Guitarist Chris Spedding also named his 1980 album after the track.