THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
2,056) Shocking Blue — “Send Me a Postcard”
Warning, if you are from Norway or the Netherlands, read no further (for this song reached #4 and #10, respectively). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Send_Me_a_Postcard) “Postcard” was Shocking Blue’s (see #1,214, 1,292) first A-side with Mariska Veres, “[a] garage rock scorcher, fierce and biting, with some of my very favourite use of electric organ in ’60s rock” (lai, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/shocking-blue/send-me-a-postcard-harley-davidson/), “a great harder edged Psych rock/pop track” (PROGROCKASAURUS, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/shocking-blue/send-me-a-postcard-harley-davidson/), “[h]ard, psychedelic but still glorious pop! BRAVO!” (ashetonpop, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upO7h5FsIYI) Musicka calls “Postcard” “their best song . . . one of the great garage/psychedelic rock songs of the era. The guitar licks, the psychedelic organ, and Mariska’s Grace Slick-like wail all] come together to create sixties perfection.” (https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/shocking-blue/send-me-a-postcard-harley-davidson/)
And give it up for Talleyrandful3305:
We had a party at high school in The Hague in 1968, just one year before “Venus” was released. And some genius managed to have Shocking Blue play for us the entire evening. They played this song as well of course. That was fabulous 🙂 A class mate of mine even danced with Mariska during a break because I promised him a beer if he would dare to ask her. I could imagine this guy Paul Overman has been grateful to me for the rest of his life 🙂
Erik Donald France ponders Shocking Blue:
Robbie van Leeuwen … , the band’s guitarist and primary creative artiste, had an excellent sense of what makes a catchy, well-performed pop song of the slightly rough variety. Hearing the songs performed with the powerful vocals of Mariska Veres makes them still a tasty aural treat. . . . Active and catchy guitar licks, big bouncy drums, organ, with zany additions of sitar, bongos, harmonica, echo and occasional extra flourishes like mandolin and Spanish guitar. Plus some country twang, some girl group dewop, ballads, and so on. Mariska Veres’ singing is potent, more akin to Grace Slick than Janis Joplin in that she is singing a song, not putting her whole life on the line while singing it; it is also exotic. . . . Van Leeuwan wrote his lyrics in English, making them quirky and refeshing, even when delving into pop cliche. Combined, there are endearing oddities . . . .
https://eriklerouge.blogspot.com/2006/10/shocking-blue-send-me-postcard-darling.html
As to SB, Rob 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 adds:
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. . . . 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.
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