I had to fight the other 3 Bangles girls to get our greatest hit on the album

THE ETERNAL FLAME SO NEARLY SNUFFED OUT

- MATT ROPER

Susanna Hoffs still shudders at the thought her power ballad, Eternal Flame, nearly didn't make it to the airways.

The song became one of the biggest hits of the 80s but it almost wasn't recorded at all.

Her Bangles bandmates - sisters Vicki and Debbi Peterson and Micki Steele didn't want it on their third album.

Susanna remembers: "The band rejected that song, and I was bereft over it, I was like mortified.

"I had taken the cassette of Eternal Flame everywhere with me, asking people if I could show them the new song I'd just written.

"I was really excited about it, but then we had this band meeting about our third album, Everything, and it was rejected. There were four members of the band and everybody got three songs on the album, it was very conscripted, almost anxiety-inducing.

"Then halfway through the making of album, our last record in the 80s, the producer said, 'You know what, Sue? I think Eternal Flame should be on the record'. And I'm like, 'Yes! Please, please'.

"I was very happy with the way it came out, but I had no idea it would end up being the biggest hit. It was like The Little Engine That Could story, I was never going to lose the hope that I had for a minute.

It is one of the experiences Susanna, now 64, drew on as she wrote her debut novel, This Bird Has Flown.

She worked on it for the last eight years and it has already received rave reviews and even been snapped up for movie rights by Universal Studios.