The Bangles: Three years of music magic

It was the Spring of 1986, the second semester of Grade 11, and I was working at a greenhouse. We often had a radio playing while we shovelled soil, filled cells, watered plants, and hauled them into various greenhouses.

This song was playing that I had heard before, but on this day, Carina, one of my co-workers, pointed it out. It was “Manic Monday”, a song by an unknown band at the time. She said Prince wrote the song.

That was also familiar to me. I used to listen to LA-107 FM broadcasting out of Lethbridge, and the announcers often injected bits of information about songs and albums. It was there where I heard that “Manic Monday” was written by Christopher which, it turns out, was a pseudonym Prince was writing under.

A day or two later I was talking to Bob one of my bosses at the greenhouse. He listened to a lot of music, and was the one who got the radio going at the greenhouse. He also bought a lot of music. On this day, I asked him if there was anything he had his eye on.

“The Bangles,” he said.

So, that was my introduction to the song “Manic Monday”, by the band The Bangles.

The other day, a story came across my newsfeed that Susanna Hoffs, lead singer of the Bangles back then, hadn’t aged a day since she fronted the band.

It reminded me of a band who, for about a three-year period, constantly had good songs on the radio and in the movies.

Manic Monday
That was the first time I heard the Bangles, but they had been around since 1981. However, they had not charted any of their songs. In 1985, they released their second album, “Different Light”, and “Manic Monday” became their first top 10 hit, going all the way to number two on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

Their next single would also chart, when “If She Knew What She Wants” peaked at number 29 on the Bilboard Hot 100.

The next single would be one of their biggesr hits.

Whistling Dixie
The third single from the album “Different Light” was “Walk Like an Egyptian”. I actually heard about the song before I actually heard it. Our high school had a Halloween dance, that was really good. Afterwards, a bunch of us including my best friend Chris Vining, went for pizza at Dilo’s in Coaldale. I recall Vining really liking the variety of music the deejay played, including “Walk Like an Egyptian”.

A few days later I heard it for the first time, and found it hard to believe it was from “Different Light”, because it seemed like that record had been released an eternity ago. Yet it was the third single from the album.

“Walk Like an Egyptian” became the Bangles first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching the top in 1987. On its rise, I was listening to one of the countdown shows, Casey Kasem’s “Coast to Coast” I think, when, leading up to “Walk Like an Egyptian”, he talked about novelty songs. He said it was one of a few charting singles that had whistling in it. Another song with whistling in it was “Centrefold” by the J. Geils Band.

Another odd memory was that my friend and neighbour Mat had heard a variation of “Walk Like a Egyptian” on one of the Calgary radio stations called “Walk Like a Calgarian”. I am pretty sure that was the same radio station that substituted its own station call sign in Starship’s “We Built This City”, which has a radio deejay speaking during the song.

It was kind of a cool gimmick.

There would be one more single from “Different Light”. It was called “Walking Down Your Street”, and peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

Then, the Bangles would go to the movies.

Movie magic
In 1987, I headed off to university in the Fall and did not pay anywhere near the same amount of attention to music that I had before. It was months after the fact that I heard the Bangles had put out another great song called “Hazy Shade of Winter” in 1987. It was a cover of a song by Simon and Garfunkel, but with a harder edge. It ended up peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100.

It must have been the summer of 1988, when I saw the video for “Hazy Shade of Winter”. It had clips with Robert Downey Jr, Andrew McCarthy, and Jami Gertz. I figured it had to be a movie.

It took another 10 years, at Christmas time in 1998 when I was living and working in Vermilion. Vining came to visit and we rented a bunch of movies including “Less Than Zero”. It was a sad story about a group of friends. One was spiraling out of control while the other two tried to help. During that movie, I heard “Hazy Shade of Winter”, and finally put it all together.

Incidentally, when some friends of mine were going to see a movie back in the Fall of 1987, they went to see “No Way Out”. The other movie they thought about going to was – “Less Than Zero”.

You’re everything
The Bangles released “Everything”, their third album in 1988. The first single was another great song called “In Your Room”, which peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100.

The next single was, by far, the Bangles’ biggest hit. The ballad “Eternal Flame”, tugs at the heart strings. It is quite simply an amazing song, peaking at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1989.

I did not actually hear it until maybe a year later. “Eternal Flame” was on this compilation tape of romantic songs I listened to all through fourth year of university. I didn’t actually figure out exactly where it fit in until I did research for this post.

“Eternal Flame” remains, to date, the last top 20 song for the Bangles.

Parting thoughts
There was a three-year period where it seemed everything the Bangles released turned to gold. Their songs could be catchy, bordering on being ear worms, quirky, and even a bit gimmicky. But then, they could be much deeper and touch your heart.

They were a big part of the soundtrack of the last half of the ‘80s for me, and every time I hear one of their top five hits, I am transported back in time.

Yet, the one thing that keeps coming to mind is – I wish they had put out more music like that.