The Bangles - Eternal Flame

 "Eternal Flame" is a love song by American rock group the Bangles from their 1988 album Everything. It became a hit single, when released in 1989, peaking at number one in the charts in nine countries, including Australia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It was written by the established songwriting partnership of Billy Steinbergand Tom Kelly (becoming the pair's fifth Billboard Hot 100 number one in five years) along with the Bangles' Susanna Hoffs. Having previously reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1986 with "Walk Like an Egyptian," the Bangles became only the third all-female group to score multiple number-ones in the United States, after the Supremes (twelve) and the Shirelles (two).

Unlike the rest of the more uptempo songs on their album Everything, "Eternal Flame" is 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."

In the BBC programme I'm in a Girl Group, Hoffs revealed she actually sang the studio recording of the song completely naked after producer Davitt Sigerson pranked her by telling her Olivia Newton-John had done the same thing, but he later told Hoffs he had been lying the whole time.

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. It was preceded at #1 on the Hot 100 by Mike + the Mechanics' "The Living Years" and succeeded by Roxette's "The Look." It also topped the US adult contemporary chart for two weeks.

The song debuted on the UK Singles Chart in February 1989 at number 81 and peaked at number one in April, spending four weeks there. It went on to spend twenty weeks in the chart and was the UK's third best-selling song of 1989.

The song spent three weeks at number one in Sweden and 18 weeks in the Swedish charts

The song also spent seven weeks at number one in the Dutch Top 40. The song was Australia's 4th biggest selling single of 1989 and was sent up on the Australian TV show Fast Forward.