‘The Kiss Of Venus’ is a song from McCartney III, Paul McCartney’s solo album written and recorded during the Covid-19 lockdown.
McCartney discussed the song during an interview with Taylor Swift for Rolling Stone magazine:
McCartney: Sometimes I’ll just be inspired by something. I had a little book which was all about the constellations and the stars and the orbits of Venus and…Swift: Oh, I know that song – ‘The Kiss of Venus’?
McCartney: Yeah, ‘The Kiss of Venus’. And I just thought, “That’s a nice phrase.” So I was actually just taking phrases out of the book, harmonic sounds. And the book is talking about the maths of the universe, and how when things orbit around each other, and if you trace all the patterns, it becomes like a lotus flower.
Swift: Wow.
McCartney: It’s very magical.
Rolling Stone
The book mentioned by McCartney is A Little Book of Coincidence in the Solar System by John Martineau. McCartney mentioned it again in his 2021 book The Lyrics: 1956 To The Present.
It’s an absolutely fascinating read because whoever designed the book visualised those orbits and revolutions. For example, geocentrically, Venus draws a pentagram around the Earth every eight years.When I first read the book, I was amazed to see these complex designs in the universe, and it made me think, ‘Yes, it is magical – this life, the interdependence of everything, trees giving oxygen; there’s so much magical stuff going on’…
Another thing I learnt from Martineau’s book is that every so often Venus passes very close to the Earth; the phenomenon is known as ‘the kiss of Venus’. That was enough to fire my imagination. That’s really what got me going.
The Lyrics: 1956 To The Present
Dominic Fike’s cover version of ‘The Kiss Of Venus’ was the first release from the McCartney III Imagined album, on 11 March 2020. The video features McCartney at the very end.
