21 May 2023 , 21:25
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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.
The Bangles singer Susanna Hoffs astounds fans with youthful glow at 65
“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’.
Debbi Peterson, Vicki Peterson, Susanna Hoffs and Michael Steele of The Bangles in 1989 (Getty Images)“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.
The romcom is about a one-hit wonder called Jane Start who today is reduced to living with her parents and performing at stag dos, who comes to Britain and gets involved with a typically English university professor at Oxford, with skeletons in his cupboard.
The parallels between the author and her main character are immediately obvious.
Susanna performing with Vicki and Debbi (WireImage)Both grew up in Jewish families in LA, both had huge success in their 20s but then fell from view, and both had a big hit penned by a reclusive rock star who favours a single colour, as was 1986’s Manic Monday by Prince to Susanna.
But she insists she didn’t base Jane on herself and only made the character a musician because “it’s a world I know well. I’ve known the ups and I’ve known the downs”.
Susanna reveals it was her son Jackson, 28, whom she shares with husband Jay Roach along with 24-year-old Sam, who finally convinced her to take the plunge.
She says: “I’ve always dreamed of writing a novel. Jackson gave me the nudge and said, ‘What are you waiting for? Tomorrow you’re going to open your blank screen and you are going to write’. And I did that, I wrote two pages that day.
“Then I forced myself to read it to Jay, my kids, my parents, and everybody resoundingly told me to keep going and that was all I needed.
“Then on my 60th birthday after I’d finally finished it was Jackson again who took the manuscript from me and went to Fedex in the pouring rain to send it to the publisher. So it might not have ever been written if it wasn’t for him.”
While Susanna credits Jackson for kick-starting her blossoming writing career, it is Prince she thanks for helping The Bangles hit the big time.
Susanna has regrets about not getting back in touch with Prince prior to his death (Redferns)
She recalls how helpful the late singer was with female artists (Getty Images)And she says she regrets not getting back in touch with him before his death in 2016. She says: “The gift of Manic Monday is something I will always cherish. He gave his music to a lot of female artists, he was extremely generous that way. I just took it as him digging what we were doing.
“He was such an interesting and fantastic person. The times I just got to schmooze with him, I remember just thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m talking to Prince!’.
“It saddens me that he passed away at such and early age. I would always think I really should find a way of getting back in touch with him and say, ‘Hello, how are you’ but then I would put it off for another day.”
As well as her new career as a novelist, Susanna still tours with The Bangles after they reformed in 1998.
But she is also making waves for her often hilarious videos on Instagram, where she can often be seen dancing in her kitchen wearing oven gloves or singing into a can on her stairs.
Susanna says: “I started an Instagram account, semi-reluctantly at first, but then I really got into it. It kind of brings out the childlike joy in me. I use it to just be myself and embrace my silly side, especially when I’ve been cooped up in the house
“The rest of my family are very different, they don’t have social media, they’re very bookish and intellectual. So my sons never comment on my posts at all. I think they just roll their eyes at that part of my life. Thankfully, they’re proud of everything else I do.”
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This Bird Has Flown, by Susanna Hoffs, published by Piatkus, is £9.99 and out now.