The Bangles - Eternal Flame - 1988 - (1989 TVE)

"Eternal Flame" is a song by American pop rock group the Bangles for their third studio album, Everything (1988). The power ballad was written by group member Susanna Hoffs with the established hit songwriting team of Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly. Upon its 1989 single release, "Eternal Flame" became a number-one hit in nine countries, including Australia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Since its release, it has been covered by many musical artists, including Australian boy band Human Nature, who reached the Australian top 10 with their version, and British girl group Atomic Kitten, who topped four national charts with their rendition.

Two of the song's three writers, Tom Kelly and Susanna Hoffs, had met via the Bangles' October 30, 1986, concert at the Avalon Hollywood (then the Palace). Kelly attended the concert and backstage met the group's members. This led to Hoffs writing songs with Kelly and his regular songwriting partner Billy Steinberg, an experience she found interesting contrast to her usual songwriting habits. Hoffs would develop lyrics based on a melody she worked out while playing around with a guitar, while Kelly and Steinberg would start with a lyrical idea and write music to fit it.[2] The trio's first composition to be recorded was "I Need a Disguise", which Belinda Carlisle recorded for her 1986 solo debut album. The Bangles' 1988 album Everything would feature two Hoffs/Kelly/Steinberg compositions, both with lead vocals by Hoffs: the upbeat lead single "In Your Room" and "Eternal Flame".

The focal metaphor of "Eternal Flame" was suggested by two eternal flames: one at the gravesite of Elvis Presley at Graceland, where the Bangles had been given a private tour.[3] Hoffs said, "we were taken out to the Garden of Memories, and there was this little box which was supposed to have a lit flame in it, an eternal flame. Actually, that day it was raining so the flame was not on"[4]—and one at a local synagogue in Palm Springs which Steinberg attended as a child.[5] Steinberg explained, "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."

After Steinberg suggested writing a song titled "Eternal Flame", he and Hoffs wrote the song's lyrics at Steinberg's house and then according to Hoffs brought the lyrics to Tom Kelly's studio where Kelly completed the music and the demo was cut. Steinberg recalls Kelly also being at Steinberg's house when the lyrics were written, beginning the music's composition there. "'Eternal Flame' was retro in that it has no chorus", Steinberg observed in 2021. Like the Beatles' "We Can Work It Out", it instead has a middle eight, the portion beginning "Say my name / Sun shines through the rain", that it repeats twice. And like the Beatles song, both verses end on the song's title. "In the 60s, it wasn't that unusual to have songs structured in that way, but, by the 80s, choruses were much more developed and middle eights had started to disappear", Steinberg recalls.[2] While the final recording is a power ballad,[7] the demo was deliberately guitar-oriented, despite sounding more suitable for a keyboard, as the Bangles had no keyboardist. When Hoffs played the demo at a band meeting where members and producer Davitt Sigerson decided what they would record for the upcoming album, it was rejected. Hoffs was "heartbroken" since she had been very enthusiastic about the song, but accepted her bandmates' decision.

During the sessions, Sigerson admitted to Hoffs that he could not get the demo out of his mind. He worked out an arrangement evoking a music box, bringing in keyboardist John Philip Shenale to give the track a chiming effect. According to Hoffs, Sigerson's production of the track was inspired by the vintage recordings of Patsy Cline which he knew Hoffs enjoyed singing along to. Hoffs would also recall that the Bangles' manager, Miles Copeland, overhearing the recording session for "Eternal Flame", had been displeased by the lack of drums and that Hoffs had to resist pressure to re-record it with a stronger beat. On the BBC program I'm in a Girl Group, Hoffs revealed she actually sang the studio recording of the song completely naked after Sigerson pranked her by telling her Olivia Newton-John recorded unclad (a falsehood Sigerson eventually admitted to). "I imagined it would feel like skinny dipping—vulnerable yet freeing – and I decided to try it", she remembered in 2021. Nobody could see me; there was a baffle in front of me and it was dark." She liked the experience enough to sing all her vocals on the album that way

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