Songwriter Billy Steinberg, who wrote monster hits for Heart, Pat Benatar, The Bangles, Madonna, The Pretenders and more, dead at 75

Billy Steinberg, who co-wrote five US Number 1 singles, including Heart's 1987 hit Alone, and The Bangles' 1989 smash Eternal Flame, has died, aged 75.

Together with his writing partner Tom Kelly, Steinberg also wrote Madonna's Like A Virgin, Cyndi Lauper's True Colors, The Pretenders' Stand By Me, The Bangles In Your Room, Pat Benatar's Sex As A Weapon, Divinyls' I Touch Myself, and songs recorded by Cheap Trick, REO Speedwagon, Tina Turner, Belinda Carlisle, and more.

In 2024, Susanna Hoffs revealed that her bandmates in The Bangles believed Eternal Flame wasn't good enough to be an album track for the Los Angeles band, never mind a single.

In an interview with Vulture, The Bangles lead vocalist said, "I was convinced Eternal Flame was one of the best songs I had ever co-written in my life, and I was very, very proud of it. So [ahead of the recording of 1988 album Everything] I presented In Your Room, Eternal Flame, and a few other songs to the band. In Your Room made the cut, but the other girls voted out Eternal Flame. I was like … what?"

"I should never liken myself to Bruce Springsteen," Hoffs continued, "but there was this lore about how he recorded Nebraska and would go around with a cassette of it in his pocket because he was so proud. I had that feeling about Eternal Flame. I would carry that cassette in my purse and to anyone who wanted to hear it, I’d be like, This is the song of my life. The only people who weren’t so into it were the other three girls in the band."

Hoffs went on to reveal that it was only at the insistence of producer Davitt Sigerson that the song was included on the group's 1988 album.

"Our producer said, 'You know what, Sue? I really love that song too, and I want to find a way to make it work for the Bangles album.' I asked what he had in mind. And he said, 'I think it should be piano-driven in a way.' It’s funny because [co-writers] Billy [Steinberg] and Tom [Kelly] knew the Bangles weren’t a piano band, so that’s why we did the Eternal Flame demo on a guitar. Of course, that worked and it ended up going on Everything and it became our biggest song."

Eternal Flame went on to become a number one single in nine countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States, and it has been streamed more than 471 million times on Spotify.

Artists

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.

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