Eternal Flame, Graceland and songs without choruses

Joe writes: I learnt recently that Eternal Flame, the classic Bangles hit, was inspired by a visit to Elvis Presley's former home Graceland, which has a supposedly eternal but actually intermittent flame. More info here from Billy Steinberg who wrote the song with Tom Kelly and Susanna Hoffs. Interesting to learn that the demo of the song was acoustic guitar-based in a bid to make it more "Bangles-y".

Here's a very evocative Top of the Pops performance:



Billy says Eternal Flame doesn't have a chorus. It's an interesting one - when you're listening to "Close your eyes, give me your hand darling", you're clearly listening to the verse, but by the end of the verse and especially by the end of the song, the verse has effectively become a chorus, as Billy says. Anyway, I've added it to my "Songs without choruses" playlist on Spotify. Other suggestions welcome:

"the sky isn't always blue, the sun doesn't always shine, it's alright to fall apart sometimes"

Joe writes: There's an identikit cover version of Robert Miles featuring Maria Nayler's One & One floating around which reminded me what a great song it is.

It was written by Billy Steinberg, Rick Nowels and Marie Claire D'Ubaldo. Billy Steinberg is "just" a lyricist - he doesn't write melody - but he's one of the most successful lyricists of the modern era having written Like A Virgin, True Colors, Eternal Flame, and Alone by Heart, all with Tom Kelly. I heard a story, probably apocryphal, that some time after Like A Virgin had been the pivotal smash for Madonna, Billy and Tom went to a party because they'd heard Madonna was going to be there and they'd never met her. They went up to her and said "Hi, we're Billy and Tom, we wrote Like A Virgin and we've always wanted to meet you". Madonna said "Well now you have". End of conversation.

There's more about Like A Virgin here, including the one lyric they didn't use in the end: "Ask my friends and they'll tell you it's true/Nobody's had what I'm giving to you", which I think is a shame.

Rick Nowels' CV is almost as impressive as Billy's, and more current - he co-wrote one of the biggest European hits of recent times, I Follow Rivers by Lykke Li, as well as Heaven Is A Place On Earth, You Get What You Give, and a number of Dido songs including White Flag.

Marie Claire D'Ubaldo is an Argentine musician whose song Falling Into You (also written with Billy and Rick) was a hit for Celine Dion.

Robert Miles was released on Arista in North America and I have a feeling Clive Davis was involved in finding this song for Robert. Children was of course Robert Miles' breakthrough smash in both the UK and the US. Then came Fable, which sounded a lot like Children. Then came One & One, which was a big hit in the UK but doesn't seem to have charted in the US.




If you'd like to hear it dubbed from the 7" vinyl head to So Many Records, So Little Time.