Shocking Blue – "Venus" (1969)

A goddess on the mountain top

Was burning like a silver flame

The summit of beauty and love

And Venus was her name

[NOTE: Today’s featured song may be the first song by a Dutch group to be inducted into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME, but you’d best believe it won’t be the last.  What follows is a lightly edited version of my original July 3, 2011, post about “Venus.”]

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"Venus" doesn't have the greatest lyrics in the world, perhaps, but Robbie van Leeuwen – the founder of the Shocking Blue and the group's chief songwriter – was Dutch, after all.  English wasn't his first language.

Shocking Blue was from the Hague, the third-largest city in the Netherlands, which spawned a number of bands.  (Think of it as the Dutch equivalent of  Liverpool.  (One other band from Hague was Golden Earring, best known for its 1973 hit, "Radar Love," which virtually compels you to drive really fast when it comes on your car radio.)

Mariska Veres, the Shocking Blue's singer

"Venus" was by far the Shocking Blue's biggest hit, selling about 5 million copies worldwide.  It was released in this country near the end of 1969, and hit #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in February 1970. 

The song was also a #1 hit for Bananarama in 1986.  Gillette featured the Bananarama version of the song in a number of TV commercials for its "Venus" razors.

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I remember singing along to "Venus" as it played in the Parkwood High School cafeteria my senior year in high school.  Our student council had successfully lobbied the powers-that-be to have a soda dispenser installed in the cafeteria.

A portion of the proceeds from the soft-drink sales were used to buy a big-ass reel-to-reel tape player, which was turned on during lunch period.

I remember a few of the songs featured on that tape player – there was "Touch Me" (the Doors), "Communication Breakdown" (Led Zeppelin), "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (Rolling Stones), and today's featured song.  That's all I've been able to pull so far, but I'm hoping that some of the people who come to my 40th high school reunion later this summer will be able to remember some of the others.

Not surprisingly, when my friends and I sang along to this song, we revised the lyrics.  

Think about it – what rhymes with "Venus"?  (We were 17-year-old boys.  What do you expect?)

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I've owned the Shocking Blue LP that "Venus" appears on for 50 years:

As I recall, I bought it at a really low-budget discount store in my home town called "Grandpa's,"  which made the local Walmart look positively upscale.  It cost 33 cents.

The other albums I got at Grandpa's for 33 cents included The Sir Douglas Quintet ("Mendocino") and Messages from the Status Quo ("Pictures of Matchstick Men").

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Shocking Blue lead singer Mariska Veres – her mother was German, her father was a Hungarian gypsy – died of cancer in 2006.  Click here to view her last TV appearance.

Click here for Bananarama's cover of "Venus."  This is a classic 1980's music video, and it is REALLY bad.

Click here to see the official video of the Shocking Blue lip-synching to "Venus."

Click on the link below to buy "Venus" from Amazon:

Shocking Blue – "California Here I Come" (1969)

How long will this go on?

Until I'm there where I belong

If you remember the Shocking Blue at all, it's likely because of their hit single, "Venus," which held the #1 spot on the Billboard "Hot 100" for three weeks in February 1970.

That was my senior year in high school, and "Venus" was one of the songs we put on the big-ass reel-to-reel tape machine that played in the high-school cafeteria during lunch hour.  

Click here to read about "Venus" and some of the other songs that were on that tape.

I later found an eponymous 1970 Shocking Blue compilation album in the cutout bins at a discount store in my hometown and jumped on it like a big dog.  (As I recall it was in the three-for-a-dollar bin.)  I didn't play the album a lot – none of the other songs other than "Venus" really grabbed me.

I'll tell you what (or who) did grab me: the Shocking Blue's lead singer, Mariska Veres.  

The Shocking Blue were a Dutch band, and Mariska Veres was born in The Hague.  But her father was a Hungarian Romani violinist (in other words, a gypsy) and her mother was born in Germany of French and Russian parents.  

Mariska Veres

So it's not surprising Mariska didn't look Dutch.  In fact, she's about as unblonde as it's possible to be.

Mariska looks and sounds a little like Grace Slick, and Shocking Blue's music is not entirely dissimilar to the music of the Jefferson Airplane.  The group even covered "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit."

Grace Slick

The Shocking Blue broke up in 1974 when Mariska decided to pursue a solo career.  The band got back together a decade or so later, but never approached their earlier success.

I only recently learned that "Venus" was inspired by "The Banjo Song," a 1963 record by the folk group The Big 3.  (Cass Elliot was a member before the Mamas and the Papas were formed.)  That record features the lyrics to "Oh! Susanna."  (That's right – "I'm going to Alabama with a banjo on my knee," etc.)

Here's "The Banjo Song," which sounds exactly like "Venus":

The author of "The Banjo Song" – Tim Rose – never alleged plagiarism.  He got his revenge by later taking credit for two oft-recorded songs that other people had written – "Hey Joe" and "Morning Dew."

The years were no kinder to Mariska Veres than they were to Grace Slick.  (To tell the truth, I don't look so great myself.)  So I've used only pictures of her in her younger days – when she was an exotic-looking beauty with a thrilling voice.

Sadly, Mariska Veras died of cancer in 2006, when she was 59.  Here's an excerpt from a British obituary:

Veres loved cats, didn't smoke, drink or do drugs and told the members of Shocking Blue when she joined that relationships were out.  Reflecting on her early fame, Veres told the Belgian magazine Flair: "I was just a painted doll, nobody could ever reach me.  Nowadays, I am more open to people." 

Here's the song that followed "Venus" on my compilation album, "California Here I Come":

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: