The Bangles classic that was recorded entirely in the nude: “Vulnerable yet freeing”
Like many who emerged around the same time, The Bangles initially sought to blend the appeal of 1960s psychedelia with the rougher elements of punk rock. However, things began to change more substantially when they crossed paths with the master of pop-rock himself, Prince.
According to Debbi Peterson, Prince adored their first record, especially the song ‘Hero Takes a Fall’. And so, he reached out to them and told them he had a couple of songs up his sleeve that he’d like them to take on. One of which was ‘Manic Monday’, written, at that time, under the pseudonym of Christopher.
A shining star of the group’s 1986 record, Different Light, ‘Manic Monday’ was a major breakthrough moment, one that Susanna Hoffs credited to being a culmination of loads of music that they already adored. That, among many other reasons, was why it worked – it sounded like a lot of things, with something unique.
As Hoffs later explained, it struck gold because the initial version reminded her of a bunch of different sounds and styles, including The Velvet Underground, The Mamas & The Papas, and Jimi Hendrix. “It has a lot of the elements of emotion and style that we connect to,” she said. “And [young people] really pick up on the nursery rhyme appeal – like ‘Sally Go ‘Round the Roses’, [there’s] a nice simplicity to it.”
The follow-up, Everything, followed an unrelenting tour cycle, leaving them desperate to stop and catch a breath, which meant taking more breaks and finding inspiration in unexpected places. One was the initial seed for ‘Eternal Flame’, which came to them after a visit to Graceland, when the “eternal flame” in the Garden of Memories was put out because it had been raining.
Sensing that it was a good name for a song, the band, along with Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, went back to write a track based around the metaphor. According to Hoffs, this was initially about the idea of “connection, hope and what we hold most dear.”
She told The Guardian, “There’s a yearning in it, from the awareness that not everything is eternal, but we don’t want love to seem fragile; we want to depend on it.”
These are all reasons why the song continues to resonate. There’s an inherent softness to it, but there’s also a headiness to it, too, like observing the stings of loss and yearning without getting too close to the fire. It’s there, all-consuming if you let it, but beautiful despite the heartache. And all of this was mainly achieved through the keyboard arrangements and soft, considered melody, but there might have been another secret ingredient in that Hoffs also recorded it entirely in the nude.
Hoffs was actually pranked by Davitt Sigerson, who, at the time, had told her that Olivia Newton-John did her “best vocals in the nude”. Believing his falsehood, Hoffs performed ‘Eternal Flame’ the same way, yet found it so freeing that she did some of the rest of the album the same way. As she recalled, “I imagined it would feel like skinny dipping – vulnerable yet freeing – and I decided to try it. Nobody could see me; there was a baffle in front of me, and it was dark.”
She went on, “After the first song went so well, I became superstitious about it, like in sports where you have to have your rabbit’s foot, and ended up compelled to skinny dip my way through most of the album, including ‘Eternal Flame’.”
