Songoftheday 6/22/16 - Close your eyes give me your hand darling, do you feel my heart beating?

"Eternal Flame" - Bangles
from the album Everything (1988)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14

Today's song of the day is from the all-woman rock band the Bangles, whose third album Everything had scored them a fourth top-10 hit with "In Your Room". The follow-up would be their "torch song" ballad, "Eternal Flame". Written by lead singer Susanna Hoffs with the team of Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg ("True Colors", "Alone", and the aforementioned "In Your Room"), the gentle hypnotic love song was as far from their punkish roots as possible...

"Eternal Flame" became the Bangles' second and so-far last #1 pop hit in the U.S. in April of 1989. The song also spent a couple week atop Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart. Internationally the single went to #1 in the UK, Australia, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands, and reached the top-10 in France (#5), Germany (#4), Canada (#4), Switzerland (#2), and Austria (#3).

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Here's the Bangles performing the song live on TV in 1989...

 Human Nature, the Australian vocal group that had Vegas at their feet for awhile, released a cover of "Eternal Flame", which went to #8 in their homeland...

A year later, German singer Rollergirl went to #40 in that country with her version, put out in both ballad and dance versions...

The most successful cover of the song after the Bangles is from British girl-group Atomic Kitten, who topped the UK chart in 2001, and went top-10 in France, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, and #1 in Belgium and New Zealand...

...and lastly, back to the girls in 2001...

Up tomorrow: Production duo with some prehistoric chores.