Pat Benatar says she's done singing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"...

Pat Benatar's Crimes of Passion was my very first album purchase!  I had it on vinyl.

A few days ago, I ran across a news item about the great rock singer, Pat Benatar.  Those of us who have been around awhile, know Pat as a tiny woman with a voice like a freight train traveling at top speed.  She's hard to match when it comes to hard driving rock vocals.  

In 1980, Pat had a huge hit song called "Hit Me With Your Best Shot".  It was a song uniquely suited to her feisty style, and it no doubt made her a lot of money.  In fact, my very first album purchase was Crimes of Passion, which was the album that song came from.  I listened to it constantly, and that album remains a guilty pleasure.

Well, because Pat is sensitive to gun violence, she says she won't sing "Hit Me With Her Best Shot" at her shows anymore.  She says that her decision came in deference to the victims of mass shootings, and their grieving families.  She told USA Today:

“Fans are having a heart attack and I’m like, I’m sorry,” Benatar, who is in the middle of a US summer tour, said. “I tell them, if you want to hear the song, go home and listen to it. [The title] is tongue-in-cheek, but you have to draw the line.”

She continued, 

“I can’t say those words out loud with a smile on my face, I just can’t. I’m not going to go on stage and soapbox – I go to my legislators – but that’s my small contribution to protesting,” Benatar said. “I’m not going to sing it. Tough.”

It's funny, because I never really equated that song with actual guns.  I always figured it was either about fighting or fucking.  It's a tough anthem about fighting back, with a fierce guitar solo by Benatar's husband, Nick Giraldo, and Pat's own powerhouse vocals.  "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" obviously isn't literally about weapons, but I guess the imagery was too much for her.  Or maybe this is her way of getting attention. 

Either way, it's her song, and her career, so if she doesn't want to sing that song anymore, so be it.  There are plenty of other songs from her decades of performing that she could do.  I, for one, am a big fan of the jazz album she did in 1991, True Love.  Pat started out as a jazz singer, and frankly, I think she's just as good or even better singing jazzy blues as opposed to rock.  A lot of rock stars put out standards albums, but I think Pat's would actually be really good!

Pat is DONE with this song.

I think she should do more songs like this one!

I have not seen Pat Benatar perform live, but I wouldn't pass up tickets to her show because of this issue.  I've heard "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" lots of times.  I don't think this decision should be that controversial, under the circumstances.