Shocking Blue: Venus (1969)

A misspelled lyric, a borrowed old melody, and two number ones seventeen years apart.

THE STORY YOU KNOW

Which version are you hearing right now?

For many listeners the answer is Bananarama – the 1986 Hi-NRG pop version that went to number one in the US, Australia and half of Europe, and has been soundtracking commercials ever since. For others it’s the original: that descending guitar figure, the sitar, Mariska Veres singing “godness on the mountain top” in a voice that sounds older than pop music.

Both versions share the same hook, but almost everything else is different. And in a strange way, both bands are known for ‘Venus’ – one song that spawned two one-hit wonders.

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THE STORY YOU DON’T KNOW

Robbie van Leeuwen wrote ‘Venus’ in 1969 for a band he’d built around a singer found performing in a local club. Mariska Veres came from music – her father was a Hungarian Gypsy violinist who had fled to the Netherlands in 1939, and she grew up singing alongside him.

Van Leeuwen based the melody on a 1963 Tim Rose arrangement called ‘The Banjo Song’, that is built on lyrics adapted from Stephen Foster’s ‘Oh! Susanna’ from the nineteenth century. Three songs, over a century, packed into one.

Van Leeuwen also wrote the lyrics in English – but neither he nor Veres spoke it fluently. The line “goddess on the mountain top” became “godness” because the lyric sheet had a typo and Veres read it phonetically. Every later version corrected the mistake. The original kept it.

The song travelled fast: by 1970 it was number one in America, a first for a Dutch act.

Bananarama had been singing ‘Venus’ together since they first formed in 1979, before they had a record deal. In 1986, their regular producers refused to record it, convinced that it couldn’t work as a dance track. Stock Aitken Waterman first resisted, then gave in. The resulting version – rebuilt around a Hi-NRG pulse, handclaps and keyboard stabs – became the first SAW production to define their signature sound. It went to number one in six countries. A new generation heard it and assumed it was theirs.

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WHERE ARE THEY NOW

Mariska Veres died in 2006, just three weeks after being diagnosed with cancer. Three of the four classic Shocking Blue members are now gone. Robbie van Leeuwen, the only survivor, largely withdrew from music in the 1980s. ‘Venus’ kept generating royalties.

Bananarama is listed by the Guinness Book of Records as the most charting all-female group in history. They’re still touring as a duo. ‘Venus’ remains their signature song too.

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THE VERDICT

In America, Shocking Blue are a one-hit wonder. In Europe, they had a real catalogue that ‘Venus’ eventually overshadowed. Bananarama had genuine hits across a decade – but internationally, ‘Venus’ is the one that travels.

The song? It has belonged to a Dutch rock band, a British pop trio, a razor brand, and a Netflix period drama The Queen’s Gambit.

Van Leeuwen borrowed a melody from a folk arrangement borrowed from the nineteenth century. It hasn’t stopped since.

Next: a goth band, a singer from a completely different world, and a song that took ten years to find its form.