Venus

Shocking Blue guitarist Robbie Van Leeuwen wrote this song, which imagines the Roman goddess Venus high on a mountaintop, filling every man with a burning desire. The group is from The Netherlands, which led to an interesting translation problem when Shocking Blue lead singer Mariska Veres sang the English lyrics. Van Leeuwen wrote the first line down incorrectly: what was supposed to be "A goddess on the mountain top" he wrote as "A goddness on the mountain top," and that's exactly how Veres sang it. Most listeners didn't notice, and the many cover versions corrected the error, but the result was a #1 hit with a misspoken first line thanks to a typo.

The female vocal trio Bananarama recorded this in 1986. It was one of the first songs they started performing when they formed the band in 1979, but they wanted to record original songs first so they would be taken seriously. Their version was produced by the team of Stock, Aitken and Waterman, who worked on hits by Rick Astley ("Never Gonna Give You Up"), Dead or Alive ("You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)") and Kylie Minogue ("I Should Be So Lucky").

The distinctive guitar riff was taken from The Who's "Pinball Wizard."