| Victoria | |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | The Dance Exponents |
| Album: | Prayers Be Answered |
| Released: | June 1982 |
| Genre: | Rock |
| Next Title: | Airway Spies |
| Next Year: | 1982 |
"Victoria" is a song by the New Zealand rock band The Exponents from the band's 1982 album Prayers Be Answered. Released in June 1982 as the band's first single, it reached Number 6 on the New Zealand singles chart.[1] The song was selected by a panel of New Zealand songwriters to have been the
"Victoria" was inspired by Jordan Luck's landlady in Christchurch, with the name Victoria used as a pseudonym (her real name was Vicky).[2] She successfully ran an escort agency but lived with an abusive man: Luck questioned her relationship with the line "What do you see in him?".
The band moved to Auckland before the release of the song. After the single became a success, Luck visited "Victoria" in Christchurch and was happy to find that she not only loved the song but had also split up with her abusive boyfriend.[3]
A video was funded by the New Zealand Broadcasting Association but, unusually for the time, included a story rather than just a studio performance. Shot in the band's hometown of Christchurch, it shows Luck as "Victoria"'s taxi driver[4] and Al Park,[5] a singer-songwriter sometimes credited as the father figure for the "Lyttelton Sound" and the first person to bring punk music to Christchurch.[6] In 2019, Luck covered Park's "I Walked Away" for the covers collection Better Already - The Songs Of Al Park.[7]
The recording of "Victoria" on the Prayers Be Answered album differs from the original single. Another version was also included on the 1985 Amplifier album.