One by one, it seems, our musical idols from the 70s and 80s let America down by succumbing to the woke dogma of the progressive left.
Add rocker Pat Benatar to that list as she had declared that she will no longer perform her hit song “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” as a result of the mass shootings in America this year.
Benatar, 69, the first female artist played on MTV, told USA Today that she was not going to sing the 1980 hit as her way of “protesting” the gun violence.
“We’re not doing ‘Hit Me With Your Best Shot’ and fans are having a heart attack,” Benatar told the outlet. “And I’m like, I’m sorry, in deference to the victims of the families of these mass shootings, I’m not singing it.”
According to Classic Rock History, the song “is regarded as the most popular recording of all the Pat Benatar songs ever released, though her breakout song “Heartbreaker” also ranks up there.
As for disappointing her fans…
“I tell them, if you want to hear the song, go home and listen to it,” Benatar told the national newspaper, adding that the song title “is tongue-in-cheek, but you have to draw the line.”
“I can’t say those words out loud with a smile on my face, I just can’t,” she said. “I’m not going to go on stage and soapbox – I go to my legislators – but that’s my small contribution to protesting. I’m not going to sing it. Tough.”
For what it’s worth, the song makes no reference to firearms or shooting, with the closest reference being “fire away.”
Here are the opening lyrics:
You’re a real tough cookie
With a long history
Of breaking little hearts like the one in me
That’s okay, lets see how you do it
Put up your dukes, let’s get down to itHit me with your best shot
Why don’t you hit me with your best shot
Hit me with your best shot
Fire away
Another lyric toward the end also reads, “Before I put another notch in my lipstick case… You better make sure you put me in my place!”
The rocker was asked, “As an artist, how do these social traumas like Roe v. Wade being overturned and the mass shootings affect the tenor of the work you’re singing from 30 or 40 years ago?”
“I’m worried, like all of us, about fundamental autonomy rights. This is a slippery slope,” she replied. “It’s not about abortion for me. I’m concerned that people are not paying attention to what this actually means.”
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Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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