Signature Songs, Vol. 9 - Pat Benatar

This week, I’m continuing my Signature Songs series with Pat Benatar, one of the defining rock voices of the late ’70s and early ’80s.

Benatar and Neil Giraldo built a catalog full of big guitars, big hooks, and unmistakable vocals, with songs like “Heartbreaker,” “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” “Fire and Ice,” “Shadows of the Night,” “Love Is a Battlefield,” “We Belong,” “Invincible,” and “All Fired Up.”

But which one is her signature song? In this episode, I break down Benatar’s career, her biggest hits, my own personal Top 5, and the four songs I think have the strongest case before making my final pick for Pat Benatar’s signature song.

It's all happening this week, on the Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast.

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Transcript

Speaker 0:03

Welcome to the Rock-N-Roll Show podcast. I'm your host Alex Gadd, and this week I've got another episode of Signature Songs for you. This time I'm bringing you back to the late '70s and early '80s to look at the catalog of one of rock's most powerful female voices. This week I'm talking about Pat Benatar. Identifying her signature song was an interesting challenge, so I'll run through the best options and make the case for the one song that I believe is the best choice, and then I wanna hear what you think. I hope you'll join me for Pat Benatar's signature song coming up right now I think you're getting the idea by now. In this series, I'm trying to figure out an act's signature song, not necessarily their best song and not always their biggest hit, but the song most tied to their overall identity. It's their musical calling card, the one that pops into your mind as soon as you hear that act's name, Or the one that most fully captures who they are. Sometimes it's the breakthrough hit, sometimes it's the biggest chart hit, sometimes it's a song that crossed over to a whole new audience, and sometimes it's just the song that best represents the essence of that artist. Usually it's a combination of all of those things, which is why this is more an art than a science, and why it's so fun to discuss this with your friends. As I'm working my way through the artists that are inducted into the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame, today I'm looking at one of the great rock stars of the late '70s and the '80s, and one who I don't think gets enough credit to this day, Pat Benatar. Alongside her partner in music and in life, Neil Giraldo, Benatar made some of the best straight-ahead rock and roll of the era. Big hooks, big guitars, big choruses, and that voice, tough, theatrical, and instantly recognizable. In 2022, Benatar and Giraldo were inducted into the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame together, which feels right because from the beginning, this was really a partnership. Patricia, as Neil likes to call her, was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island. After high school, she moved south with her first husband, Dennis Benatar, which is where she got her last name from, and started singing with a band in Richmond, Virginia. But just as that band was on the verge of turning professional, she headed back to New York to chase a solo career. Her break came at Catch a Rising Star, the New York comedy club, where she sang at an amateur night and blew the room away, even at 2:00 AM. The club's owner, Rick Newman, signed her to a management deal, and before long, she was working the New York club scene. One key moment came at a Halloween contest at Cafe Figaro in the West Village, where she dressed as a cat-like character inspired by the cult movie Cat-Women of the Moon. The look worked, and it eventually evolved into the spandex catsuit image that became part of her early '80s identity. But the image only mattered because her records were so good. Starting with her 1979 debut album, In the Heat of the Night, Benatar became one of the defining rock voices of that era. And right as that debut was coming together, she met Neil Giraldo, a young guitarist who had already played with Rick Derringer and was brought in to help shape her sound. That pairing became the package, singer and guitarist, frontwoman and bandleader, eventually husband and wife. Together, Benatar and Giraldo built a career that included 11 studio albums, more than 40 singles, and four consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance from 1980 through 1983. They've also enjoyed a marriage of more than 40 years with two children, and finally, a shared place in the Rock Roll Hall of Fame. Of those 11 studio albums, eight of them reached the Top 40 in the Billboard 200 album chart, with her first five all getting into the Top 20. One of them went all the way to number one. That was her third album, 1981's Precious Time. Those albums produced 15 Top 40 singles, nine of which became Top 20 singles, and four of those got into the Top 10. So unlike some artists in this series, where the signature song discussion narrows pretty quickly, Benatar gives us a deep bench from which to draw on. The first real candidate for signature song is Heartbreaker from In the Heat of the Night. Her first two singles from that record didn't chart at all, and as an aside, that included a very stiff cover of John Cougar's I Need a Lover, which she released at almost the same time as John Cougar's own version was released in the U.S. But Heartbreaker, two singles later, broke through reaching number 23. That same album also gave us We Live for Love, but Heartbreaker was the hit that launched her career. Album number two was Crimes of Passion in 1980, and this is where the hits started piling up. That album included You Better Run, Treat Me Right, and Hit Me With Your Best Shot. You Better Run just missed the top 40, reaching 42 on the charts, while Treat Me Right got to number 18, and Hit Me With Your Best Shot got all the way to number nine, becoming her first top 10 hit.

Alex Gadd 5:02

That was followed by a third album, the previously mentioned Precious Time, which was her 1981 number one album. That included Fire and Ice, which reached number 17 on the singles chart, and Promises in the Dark, which snuck into the top 40 at number 38. The next year, 1982, produced Get Nervous, and that was album number four, which featured Shadows of the Night, which reached number 13. It also included Little Too Late, which got to number 20, and Looking for a Stranger, which just made it into the top 40 again, this time at number 39. Then in 1983, she released her first live album, Live from Earth, which included two new studio tracks. One of those was Love Is a Battlefield, which was the single from the album, and ultimately reached number five, her highest charting US single up to that point, and it was helped by her first true concept video, which was a huge hit on MTV. The following year, her album Tropico gave us We Belong, which also reached number five, the second single in a row to do so. While it's not the same kind of hard-rocking Pat Benatar song people had come to expect, it is absolutely one of her biggest and most enduring songs. In 1985, her album Seven the Hard Way produced the song Invincible, which reached number 10 and gave Benatar her fourth top 10 hit. Then in 1988, Wide Awake in Dreamland gave us All Fired Up, which reached number 19 and became her final US Top 40 single. So those are the candidates as I see them. I don't think there are any non-single album tracks that rise up into this discussion. And let me say again, what an impressive run of great albums to start a career. Her first seven years produced six studio albums, the first five of which got into the top 20, plus a live album that got into the top 20 and included one of her biggest songs. That's just an amazing way to start a career, and it should be celebrated more. But getting back to the signature song, it's gonna come from the group of hit singles, Heartbreaker, Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Fire and Ice, Shadows of the Night, Love is a Battlefield, We Belong, Invincible, or All Fired Up. As I've said many times before on this series, favorite song and signature song are not necessarily the same thing. So before I get to the finalists, here are my personal top five Pat Benatar songs. At number five is All Fired Up, the last of her top 40 singles from 1988. This showed she could still rock after 10 years, and is a great hype-up song. It's on my workout playlist, it's on my running playlist. Should be on yours, too. At number four, Hit Me With Your Best Shot from 1980. We played this in my band that I was in during business school, and our female singer, Robin, absolutely crushed this one. It's a crowd-pleaser every time, so it's in my top five. At number three is Heartbreaker from 1979. The defiance and attitude she put out on this song blew me away when I was young, and I'm still impressed by it today. When I hear this one, I remember that feeling, and I love this song. At number two is Promises In the Dark from 1981. It has that slow first verse that kinda reminds me of a Meat Loaf song, and then it takes off like a rocket ship into the rest of the song. It's just a great tune all the way through, and a great showcase for her powerful voice. Plus, when Neil counts the band back in after the pause towards the end of the last chorus, it's just so cool, and it leads to a great outro. Overall, a killer track. Finally, at number one, Shadows of the Night from 1982. This one's a tough rocker about trying to block out the mundane real world stuff with her lover, very similar to a Born to Run-era Springsteen song, at least in my mind, and you know that's always gonna work for me. I always wanted to hear a girl whisper, "Midnight angel, won't you say you will," in my ear. Oh, well. But if I'm separating my personal favorites from the signature song question, I think the real race comes down to just four songs: Heartbreaker, Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Love Is a Battlefield, and We Belong. Each one has a different strength. First, there's Heartbreaker. It's the first serious candidate because it's the song that introduced Pat Benatar to the world. Top 40 single from the then unknown artist helped propel her debut album to number 12 on the album chart, which was an impressive start for a female rocker in 1979, especially in a year stacked with monster records like Tom Petty's Damn the Torpedoes, Pink Floyd's The Wall, the Eagles' The Long Run, Fleetwood Mac's Tusk, Supertramp's Breakfast in America, and a little bit later, right at the end of the year, The Clash's London Calling, as well as the final Led Zeppelin album. So breaking through that kind of traffic was a major accomplishment, even more so as a solo female rock singer, and Heartbreaker did it because it was undeniable. It established her attitude, her voice, her toughness, and defined her rock and roll identity. Hit Me With Your Best Shot is the second big-time contender. It was Benatar's first top 10 hit, and today it's her most streamed song on Spotify, which I use as a proxy for 21st century impact. It has a memorable singalong chorus everybody remembers, and the attitude people associate with her public image. It's compact, punchy, and instantly identifiable. It may not show off the full range of what she and Neil Giraldo could do, but as a calling card, it's hard to beat. Third up is Love Is a Battlefield. It's a strong option because it was more than just one of her two highest charting singles. It was the song that won her fourth consecutive Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, and it was nominated for Best Female Video at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards. It's also her third most streamed song on Spotify. This was Pat Benatar moving beyond the spandex catsuit rocker image into something more dramatic and cinematic, fitting into the MTV mid-'80s fashion while still being Pat Benatar. It wasn't as straight ahead rock and roll as Heartbreaker or Hit Me With Your Best Shot, but it signaled her evolution to her peak mainstream impact. Finally, there's We Belong. It's the big emotional mid-'80s hit. Like Love Is a Battlefield, it reached number five and has had enormous staying power. It's not the hard rocking Benatar of the early records, but it shows another side of her, not quite a ballad, but a dramatic, thoughtful song that still sounds great. It's also her second most streamed song on Spotify. It may not be the obvious pick, but it's one of the best records she ever made, and for a lot of listeners, it is the Pat Benatar song that still sounds so lush and huge. Of those four finalists, I'm gonna eliminate Heartbreaker first. It was the breakthrough, no doubt, and it may be the purest early example of Pat Benatar as a straight ahead rock singer. But it was the first hit and it, at best, is the second-best rock song from her catalog, at least in my opinion. I'm also gonna eliminate We Belong. It was a huge song for her, and I think it's one of her best records, but I don't think it's the best representation of Pat Benatar as a rock star. For signature song purposes, I Want the song that best captures her public image most completely, and We Belong feels a little too far away from that image. So for me, it comes down to Love Is a Battlefield and Hit Me With Your Best Shot. And while Love Is a Battlefield is a major track for her, maybe her biggest MTV moment and one of the best examples of her mainstream power, her vocal range isn't on display here as much as it is in the other more rocking songs. And I also always felt like it was her compromising towards pop music, and it sanded off some of the rough edges that made her, in my mind, so great. And that keeps me coming back to Hit Me With Your Best Shot. Now, there is one wrinkle here, which is that Pat Benatar herself has backed away from performing Hit Me With Your Best Shot in concert, not because she disowns or dislikes the song in any way, but because in the era of mass shootings, she no longer feels right standing on stage and singing phrases like, "Hit me with your best shot," and, "Fire away." She said that she retired it from the setlist out of respect for the victims and families affected by gun violence. But even with that complication, and you gotta respect that, the song's place in her career is hard to deny. On Benatar and Giraldo's own website, in the About section, it says that Crimes of Passion, quote, "Included her signature song, Hit Me With Your Best Shot, and gave Pat her first top 10 million-selling hit." And so with her and Neil's blessing, I'm making an unexpectedly difficult call here and calling Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Pat Benatar's signature song Okay, what do you think? Did I get it right or wrong? Please let me know because as I said from the start, I'm doing this podcast to have fun discussing great bands and great music, and I've still got a ton of Hall of Fame acts to get through. So if you like what you heard today, I'd appreciate it if you would like and either subscribe or follow this channel to make sure you get notified about each new episode, and please tell your friends. Also, a reminder that I release a playlist for every episode, so look for the Rock-N-Roll Show podcast playlist on Spotify and Apple Music every week. This week featuring all the Pat Benatar songs I mentioned here today, plus a few more bonus tracks, so check that out. Additionally, as I said, I wanna know what you think, so please leave me a comment and I'll try to respond to every one of them. The Rock-N-Roll Show podcast is a World Highway Media production. I'm your host Alex Gadd, and until next time, remember that life is short, so get those concert tickets