‘Eternal Flame’ by the Bangles – Classic Hit or Miss

It became a hit single, when released in 1989, peaking at number one in the charts in nine countries, including Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It was written by popular songwriters Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly and The Bangles' own Susanna Hoffs. With this song and "Walk Like An Egyptian", The Bangles became only the third all-girl group to score multiple no.1's in the United States. (The others are The Supremes, who had 12, and The Shirelles, with 2.).

Unlike the rest of the garage-band pop songs on their album Everything, the song was a ballad. Co-writer Billy Steinberg describes it as "The Beatles meet The Byrds".

The song was inspired by two eternal flames: one at the gravesite of Elvis Presley that the Bangles saw when the band visited Graceland, and one at a local synagogue in Palm Springs which Steinberg attended as a child. Steinberg recalled to Songfacts: "Susanna was talking about The Bangles having visited Graceland, and she said there was some type of shrine to Elvis that included some kind of eternal flame. As soon as those words were mentioned, I immediately thought of the synagogue in the town of Palm Springs, California where I grew up. I remember during our Sunday school class they would walk us through the sanctuary. There was one little red light and they told us it was called the eternal flame."

It spent one week at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, blocking Milli Vanilli's "Girl You Know It's True" from reaching the summit position.[4] It was preceded at #1 on the Hot 100 by Mike + The Mechanics' "The Living Years" and succeeded by Roxette's "The Look".

Still a hit today?