“Walk Like an Egyptian” by The Bangles

"Walk Like an Egyptian" was the third single from the Bangles' second album, Different Light, and it came from an outside writer: Liam Sternberg got the idea on a ferry across the English Channel, watching passengers lurch and flap their arms in choppy water like the figures in ancient Egyptian tomb paintings. The Bangles made it a sly, jerky novelty with brains, passing the lead vocal between Susanna Hoffs, Vicki Peterson and Michael Steele over Debbi Peterson's drums.

David Kahne produced it at the Sound Factory and David Leonard mixed. It became the band's first number one in the US, went gold, topped the charts in seven other countries, reached number three in the UK, and Billboard named it the top song of 1987.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.