History
Unlike the rest of the more uptempo pop 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."
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".
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 and went on to spend twenty weeks in the chart and was the UK's third best-selling song of 1989.
The song also spent seven weeks at the #1 position in the Dutch Top 40. It also topped the U.S. adult contemporary chart for two weeks.
The song was Australia's 4th biggest selling single of '89 and was sent up on the Australian TV show Fast Forward.
Read more about this topic: Eternal Flame (song)
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