It is not entirely clear why I think to compare these two women to each other, not even to myself. They were both simultaneously equally popular for a brief moment in time when I was too young to remember, so that is probably not it. I think it is because the two of them personify best two different archetypes I admire in the rock and roll genre. Punk rock rebellion, and popstar who still rocks hard enough to be both a popstar and Rockstar.
Like just about anyone who decides to write about music for a hobby, I have little love for pop music. I could list all the predictable reasons why someone like me does not like pop music, but you already know them all. Thankfully, I am not so close minded not to be able to appreciate a little bit of the everything, and I feel like Pat Benatar rides the line perfectly. She is just pop enough that it makes sense she had hit songs, but she is rock and roll enough that I respect her. She grants me an opportunity to listen to something catchy and fun, while still maintaining my own self respect as someone who every night for three years listened to Led Zeppelin until he fell asleep.
Fragile reality we all live in.
If you have read enough of this blog, you should have discovered that while I listen to an overwhelming amount of rock and roll and metal, I do stray into other genres with some frequency, and Pat Benatar is far from the furthest outsider of my base musical taste. But that is the thing. I do not feel like Pat Benatar strays outside of my primary rock and roll wanting at all. She is a rock and roll hero, she just happens to be equally qualified to be a pop icon.
In many ways Pat Benatar was ahead of the curve. In the late seventies there were not that many solo female musical artists. Now arguably Benatar was never a solo artist, she maintained a very consistent line up in her band for the past forty years, but she has always been billed as a solo act, and that is significant for popular appeal and standards in the music industry, and solo female artists were comparatively very rare in her time.
One thing I always took for granted was the female empowerment in Benatar’s songs; maybe I missed the significance because I am a man; or maybe I failed to notice the importance because Benatar wove these messages seamlessly into her song’s narratives. Songs like “Love is a Battlefield” and “Hit Me with your Best Shot” struck me as personal anthems, like Benatar is strong hearted enough that she can stand strong through heartbreak and adversity. It makes sense that Benatar could perfectly express these sentiments, Benatar was not a shrinking violet who knew nothing about the world, by the time she had become a successful singer she was divorced and had changed career paths multiple times, she had already lived through heartbreak and adversity; she was the genuine article.
Benatar had several hit songs throughout her career, none ever reached number one, but I am not concerned about stats like that, what matters is quality. There is a longevity to Benatar’s songs, which is a natural consequence to the base fact that her songs are good, they are quality songs. The obvious song to blab about here would probably be “Love is a Battlefield” which is possibly my favorite Pat Benatar song, but I have fondness for “Shadows of the Night” both the song and the music video.
For many years the only Benatar songs I would regular listen to were the ones already mentioned, “Love is a Battlefield” and “Hit me with your Best Shot.” Then as it happens, something passing made me want more. Human memory is funny, it is funny what you can remember in vivid detail sometimes. I was watching a comedy horror film “Dance of the Dead” it was pretty good, there within the rock band performed a cover song I knew, but it was hazy in my memories. They covered Pat Benatar’s “Shadows of the Night.” It came back to me very quickly, but I had not heard that song in many years, but after finishing the film I really wanted to hear Benatar’s original version. Since that day, which must have been at least ten years ago now, “Shadows of the Night” has been a regular on my playlists.
After getting reacquainted with “Shadows of the Night” I decided to familiarize myself with everything Pat Benatar. In this day in day and age it is pretty easy to listen to every single song a musician has ever released, so that is what I did. I have listened to Benatar’s complete body of work a few times because of this. Now whenever I think of Pat Benatar, at all, the song that jumps to the forefront of my thoughts is always “Shadows of the Night.” It is a minor memory that triggers a collection of others, a “rosebud” moment.
I mentioned I liked the music video. Starts out with Pat dressed like Rosie the Riveter preparing presumably ammunition for the second world war. Then she dozes off and we see her and her band as saboteurs for the allied forces flying at night to avoid detection to a Nazi base, planting bombs, blowing them up and escaping. I am sure this video has aged less then favorably with time, but it has a lot of things I like. Pat looks great, maybe that goes without saying. I like Rosie the Riveter. I enjoy Nazi’s getting blown up. The song is great obviously. But there is also one odd bit of trivia, one of those Nazis is played by actor Bill Paxton.
How Bill Paxton should be most famous for the unique accomplishment of being the first actor to be killed by the Terminator, the Predator an the Alien. I say, he is the first because Lance Henrikson being killed by the Predator in the first “Alien vs Predator” film, resulted in him also being killed by all three. Bill Paxton is still unique, because of his appearance in Pat Benatar’s “Shadows of the Night” he is also killed by Pat Benatar. Good luck managing that Henrikson.
I just learned that Pat Benatar has been nominated this year to join the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. While the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has become increasingly a farce, it is very nice to see Pat and her band get some well-deserved additional recognition.
Until next month, keep on rocking in the free world.
- King of Braves
