The Kiss Of Venus

“The Kiss Of Venus” is a track from 2020 album “McCartney III“.

‘The Kiss Of Venus’ was inspired by a book about the movements of the planets. The book discussed the ‘pentagram of Venus’ and used the poetic term the kiss of Venus. Along with Paul’s singing and guitar, the only other instrument to appear on the track is a harpsichord. Whilst often associated with Baroque music, Paul is a big fan of the harpsichord and has used it throughout his career, and on recent songs like ‘New’ and ‘Fuh You’. Paul also plays harpsichord on ‘Find My Way’ and ‘Pretty Boys’ on ‘McCartney III’.

From Spotify Storyline. Storyline is a feature of Spotify that gives behind-the-scenes information from artists about their songs, presented with a carousel of cards featuring a combination of text and images.

On one of the songs off the new album, called ‘Kiss of Venus,’ I wrote it one summer’s day, and I got the beginning of it – The Kiss Of Venus, da, da, da, da – and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s OK, I’ll record it, I’ll finish it someday.’ But then I said to myself, ‘No, what have you got? You haven’t got anything on [right now]. Sit here and finish that bloody song!

Paul McCartney – from CBS Sunday Morning interview, December 20, 2020

I fight with myself sometimes. I did it recently. I had an afternoon, it was a lovely summer’s day last year, and the window was open and I was in the bedroom in London and I sat down and thought, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll have a noodle.’ So I was noodling on the guitar and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s quite good.’ And I thought, I’ll either just bang it down on my iPhone or I’ll finish it. And I wrestled with myself, and said, ‘Finish it – what else are you gonna do? stick it down then go and watch telly or something? Finish it. Take an hour or’. So I did and I was very proud of myself. I had a cool little book Jools Holland’s wife had given me, kind of an astrology book, all about the planets and the movements and the fantastic synchronicity of it all. A fascinating book, actually, when the planets go through all the little things, if you look at a graph, as it were, of them all, it like makes a lotus. It’s trippy. There was some great little phrases – “the kiss of Venus” was one of them. So I was loving that book and I was making up a song about that, but that was an instance of forcing myself to write. And I felt good after it. I thought, ‘Yeah that’s a pretty good little song.’ I haven’t had time to record it, but I will.

Paul McCartney, from the Flaming Pie – Archive Collection book, 2020

During his interview with the podcast Sodajerket in September 2018, Paul McCartney played a few seconds of “Kisses Of Venus” recorded on his phone.

A demo version of “The Kiss Of Venus” was released as a bonus track on some versions of “McCartney III“.

In 2021, for the “McCartney III Imagined” project, American singer Dominic Fike reimagined “The Kiss Of Venus” as “a retro-futuristic R&B tour de force“, according to the press release. The accompanying music video featured Paul McCartney at the very end of it.

when I started making this, the song wasn’t out yet and it was surreal to think that there was no youtube video to teach me how to play it. that I was the first person to get to figure it out. it started out as an exact cover but quickly morphed into this because there was no world where I was going to try and outdo the original so I made it my own. I still can’t believe this happened, thank you for being the ultimate source @paulmccartney

Dominic Fike – from Instagram, March 11, 2021

Lyrics

Variations

• A Album version
• B Phone demo
• C "McCartney III Imagined" version

Officially appears on

Related films

Videos

Live performances

Paul McCartney has never played this song in concert.

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