Songwriter Billy Steinberg had been a fan of the Bangles since their first album. After a Bangles concert Billy met with Susanna Hoffs and she agreed to write with him and his other writing partner Tom Kelly. After their first time of writing together none of the songs were recorded but a relationship was established. Later their first recorded effort was done not by the Bangles but by Belinda Carlisle on her first solo album self-titled Belinda. The song she chose was called "I Need a Disguise."
When they wrote "Eternal Flame" Tom and Billy said they wanted to write something that sounded like a Beatles melody. Susanna is a fan of 60's music and loves groups like the Beatles, The Monkees and the Byrds. Billy said that "Eternal Flame" to him sounds like the Beatles meet the Byrds.
The inspiration for the song was part of the eternal flame that burned in Graceland for Elvis and a childhood memory of Susanna's from when her sunday school class was showed a red light that they were told was called the eternal flame.
The song almost didn't make the final cut for the new album. Most of the songs were geared to sounding like a rock and roll garage band as the group wanted to show off thier songwriting and musicianship skills. Suddenly here is the beautiful ballad and it needed a different production style.
The first single from the album was "In Your Room" and it peaked at #5. "Eternal Flame" was the follow up and on this day in music history it reached #1 on the Billboard charts for 1 week. After this the group said they were going on hiatus. Not long afterward the hiatus was officially announced that it was really a break up.
You can click on the You Tube link below to view the music video.
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