Pat Benatar Won't Perform 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot' In Protest Of Gun Violence

Audiences who catchPat Benatar on tour this summer time could also be shocked to seek out one of many singer’s most beloved songs absent from her set record.

Benatar, a four-time Grammy winner, tells USA At present she’ll now not be performing her 1980 smash “Hit Me with Your Greatest Shot” in protest of gun violence.

“I’m sorry, in deference to the victims of the households of those mass shootings, I’m not singing it,” she advised the publication in an interview printed Friday.

“[The title] is tongue-in-cheek, however you must draw the road,” she continued. “I can’t say these phrases out loud with a smile on my face, I simply can’t.”

“Hit Me with Your Greatest Shot,” off the 1980 album “Crimes of Ardour,” was Benatar’s first Prime 10 single. Written by Eddie Schwartz, the track contains the chorus: “Why don’t you hit me along with your greatest shot, hit me along with your greatest shot, hearth away!”

The observe has gone on to turn into a karaoke bar staple, and was memorably carried out by Catherine Zeta-Jones within the film musical “Rock of Ages.” Kelly Clarkson additionally lined the track on her 2012 Stronger Tour.

On Friday, Benatar acknowledged followers “are having a coronary heart assault” over her determination to omit the track from her current concert events. She’s hopeful they’ll console themselves by listening to different massive hits from her catalog, like 1979’s “Heartbreaker” and 1983’s “Love Is a Battlefield” ― or by staying dwelling altogether.

“[The title] is tongue-in-cheek, however you must draw the road,” Pat Benatar stated of "Hit Me with Your Greatest Shot."

Medios y Media by way of Getty Photos

“I inform them, if you wish to hear the track, go dwelling and take heed to it,” she stated. “I’m not going to go on stage and soapbox – I am going to my legislators – however that’s my small contribution to protesting. I’m not going to sing it. Powerful.”

As of Friday, there have been 357 mass shootings within the U.S. to date this 12 months, in accordance to the Gun Violence Archive. Final month, President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan gun security invoice, which incorporates enhanced background checks for these below 21 and extra funds for psychological well being.

Nonetheless, Biden and different Democrats have conceded that the laws falls far in need of the reforms advocates had hoped for, reminiscent of banning assault weapons.

Elsewhere in her USA At present chat, Benatar stated the Supreme Court docket’s June ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and eradicated the federal proper to an abortion was additionally on her thoughts as she was planning her tour.

Although her track “Invincible” was launched in 1985, she believes its message of self-empowerment will proceed to resonate amongst fashionable audiences given the present political local weather.

“I’m nervous, like all of us, about basic autonomy rights,” Benatar stated. This can be a slippery slope. It’s not about abortion for me. I’m involved that persons are not being attentive to what this really means.”