Jan 3rd in Pop History

On this day, January 3rd in: 

(35 years ago today…)

1987:  The Bangles were at their peak with Walk Like An Egyptian, holding on to # 1 for the third week.

Walk Like an Egyptian was released as the third single from Different Light (the album name). It debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1986. The song reached number one in the US on December 20, staying at the top of the Hot 100 for four weeks, carrying it over into January 1987. The success of the song and Manic Mondaypropelled Different Light to number two on the Billboard 200 chart, making it the group's most successful album. 

Walk Like an Egyptian was the band's first number one single, it was certified gold, and it eventually became Billboard’s number-one song for the entire year 1987.

The song writer, Liam Sternberg, said he was inspired to create the song while on a ferry crossing the English Channel. When the vessel hit choppy water, passengers stepped carefully and moved their arms awkwardly while struggling to maintain their balance, and that reminded Sternberg of the depiction of human figures in ancient Egyptian tomb paintings. He wrote the words "Walk like an Egyptian" in a notebook. Later, Sternberg looked back in the notebook, and composing the melody with a guitar, he put together an up-tempo song with lyrics about Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Nile River, crocodiles, desert sand, bazaars and hookah pipes, and then segued into modern scenes of blond waitresses, school kids and police officers. 

The Bangles are an American pop rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1981. The band recorded several singles that reached the U.S. top 10 during the late 1980s, including Manic Monday (1986), Walk Like an Egyptian (1986), Hazy Shade of Winter (1987), In Your Room (1988), and Eternal Flame (1989). 

Hear it on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/track/5L6HNuXN71bfeuKXYtRasF?si=ntJP9KPzQKqyJ-LCLnI6-w

Also, on January 3rd…

1970:  B.J. Thomas moved to # 1 on the charts with Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head, a song from the movie Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. The song was a Burt Bacharach / Hal David composition 

1979:  Although the song didn't appear on the chart until six weeks later, a new wave group released their first single on this date - Blondie released Heart Of Glass

1981:  John Lennon remained at # 1 with the song released just weeks before his death-- (Just Like) Starting Over

1984:  Huey Lewis & the News released the single I Want A New Drug