written by Susanna Hoffs, Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly

produced by Davitt Sigerson

​

Here’s a tender loving ballad by a girl band that started as hard

rockers. Funny how often that works out, and really well too.

​

Originally known as the Colours (odd spelling for an American

band), the group consisted of Los Angelenas Susanna Hoffs (the lead singer), sisters Vicki Peterson (the guitarist) and Debbi Peterson (the drummer) and Annette Zilinskas (the bassist). Around 1981, they changed their name to the Bangs.

​

The Bangs released an independent single in ’81, “Getting Out Of Hand.” They prepared an extended play to release in ’82, before realizing there was already a registered band in existence called the Bangs. So a slight modification was implemented, and the girls became the Bangles. The E.P. was eponymous, and included five songs. In 1983, Annette left the band to join country punk outfit Blood On The Saddle, and was replaced on bass by a former member of another all-female group—The Runaways—Michael Steele. The Runaways also featured Joan Jett and Lita Ford before they hit it (really) big.

​

The Bangles were pleased to obtain a deal with the ageless titan of recording history, Columbia Records. Spring ’84 saw the debut Bangles release, All Over The Place, birthing two singles and performing modestly. A year and a half later, album two was in the can, and the girls were ready to leap into 1986 with a splash. And even though it wasn’t a Leap Year... leap they did.

​

Right near New Year’s ’86, A Different Light hit the shops. Late in January, its opening single popped, the first major Bangles smash, in the form of “Manic Monday”—written by Prince, under the pseudonym Christopher. It JUST barely missed out on #1 pretty much everywhere. But the ladies didn’t have to worry about that later in the year, with Different Light single four... “Walk Like An Egyptian.”

​

The girls found themselves on a roll. Different Light singles “If She Knew What She Wants” (Jules Shear) and “Walking Down Your Street” also did rather well, as did their next piece, a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Hazy Shade Of Winter” for the film Less Than Zero. Which brings us to Everything... the third album by the ladies.

​

Rivaling “Egyptian” for all-time biggest Bangles hit, “Eternal Flame” is easily the band’s biggest ballad. Susanna teamed up with by now famous songwriting duo Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly to concoct it. One thing making it unique is that it has no pre-chorus or actual chorus; it’s composed only of verses and a returning bridge/middle-8 part. Then of course all the girls backing Susanna gang up on the returning verse together to conclude. And so you’re going to see only green in purple in the lyrics.

​

Three other singles from the album Everything surrounded “Flame,” before May of 1990 presented the release of the band’s greatest hits package. Bangles fans would need all of this material to hold them over, as rifts began arising between the girls. They split up, until 1998, coming back together to record a new song for Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. The next full-length album, Doll Revolution (2003), came with a shift to Koch Records, followed by 2011’s Sweetheart Of The Sun, courtesy of Waterfront Records—the first and only album recorded without Michael Steele. And as of this cataloguing... that’s all she, she, she and she wrote.

​

Have notes to add? Let me know!

​

YT:

full version

music video

​

Bangles’ official website