THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,292) Shocking Blue — “Never Marry a Railroad Man”
Sorry Venus, this is Shocking Blue’s (see # 1,214) best song. “What a gorgeous melody for such a melancholy song” (vincenzowolfen45833, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ja4Fo7OJws&pp=ygUoc2hvY2tpbmcgYmx1ZSBuZXZlciBtYXJyeSBhIHJhaWxyb2FkIG1hbg%3D%3D) Brian Green writes that:
[It] may be their best song altogether. A number one in Holland and a gold record in Germany and Japan, this mid-tempo track, with its staccato guitar riff and stays-in-your-head vocal melody, somehow didn’t make any noise in America [reaching #102], or England, where they were, amazingly, never terribly popular.
“Never marry a Railroad man He loves you every now and then His heart is at his new train, no, no, no Don’t fall in love with a Railroad man”
UDX4570PalmSprings-yh1mv writes:
I’ve been a freight train engineer for nearly 30 years now, and She couldn’t have been more right. Our lives are different than most. I wonder how these musicians knew?
And Vincenzowolfen45833 remarks:
[M]y Dad was a Via Rail Conductor when it used to run the #1 line across Canada and when it was still part of the C.P.R. My sisters would sing this to him and my Mom back in the day.
As to SB, Horning explains:
The Shocking Blue achieved a blip of international fame with their single “Venus”, an irresistible and nonsensical confection that stuck them with the one-hit wonder label in America, where none of the band’ s subsequent singles caught on. . . . Formed by guitarist/songwriter Robbie Van Leeuwen after quitting the Motions . . . the Shocking Blue seem like they set out to be the Dutch Jefferson Airplane, with acid-rock guitar, a full-throated Grace Slick wannabe in Veres, eclectic instrumentation, and semi-hallucinatory lyrics about free love, voodoo, California, and the like. But unlike the Airplane, the Shocking Blue never succumb to pretentiousness through either diffuse experimentation or ponderous songwriting. Instead the band churns out pseudo-psychedelic bubblegum . . . all [with] precision and eagerness to please . . . .
https://www.popmatters.com/shockingblue-athome-2496060322.html
Brian Green dumps on Jefferson Airplane:
Jefferson Airplane is be the band that Shocking Blue mostly invites comparisons to, and it was the Airplane that veteran Dutch rocker Robbie van Leeuwen had in mind when he decided he wanted a female vocalist for his group. But while van Leeuwen may have started out emulating the Jefferson Airplane, his band quickly and permanently outclassed their predecessors. Where the Airplane’s lyrics were usually cliché-addled and verging on ridiculous, van Leeuwen offered fresh and innocent boy/girl tales and existential laments; while JA’s music often had that messy, jazzy, “let me do a solo”element weighing it down, Shocking Blue stuck to stripped-down, energy-packed Beat Club grooves; and Mariska Veres was simply a better singer than Grace Slick, more genuinely soulful, more naturally melodious. Veres was actually not Shocking Blue’s original singer. When guitarist van Leeuwen dropped out of local hitmakers the Motions to form his own band in ‘67, he did so with another Dutch scenester, Fred de Wilde, at the mic. The all-boy Blue recorded one album and some singles (a few of these minor hits in Holland . . . ) But . . . just when van Leeuwen was thinking that he wanted a chick to sing his songs, de Wilde was called off to do military service. Robbie wasted no time in finding Veres, who looked like a model and sang like a soul sister.
Steve Leggett adds:
Although Shocking Blue’s albums . . . featured progressive rock elements and inventive arrangements thanks to Van Leeuwen’s writing and production skills, the band was essentially marketed as a pop singles unit, and while they scored several subsequent hits in their homeland, none of the group’s releases approached the massive saturation success of “Venus.” Veres left Shocking Blue in 1974 to pursue a solo career . . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/shocking-blue-mn0000029604#biography
On TV in ’69:
“Recently found footage from “Beat Behind The Dykes” (Dutch TV show, 1970)”:
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Hey I know this song! It’s great to hear that family connection with it as well. van Leeuwen really captured/borrowed a bit of that southern spirit with some of his songs.
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How dare you know that song!
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Hey even a broken clock is right twice a day!
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🤣 Hey, is that the title of a song?!
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