Pat Benatar won’t perform her 1980 classic “Hit Me together with your Best Shot” anymore.
Amid ongoing gun violence in America, the singer says she’s come to look at the song differently.
“I’m not visiting sing it,” Benatar told USA Today.
While the song’s meaning is about strength and resiliency, Benatar said, “you need to draw the line” and be aware of the lyrics.
“I can’t say those words aloud with a smile on my face, I just can’t,” Benatar said, adding that the choice is her “small contribution to protesting.”
The US is on pace in 2022 to match or surpass its worst year ever for mass shootings, consistent with the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit that tracks gun violence incidents across the country.
Benatar said she would continue performing “We Belong,” “Heartbreaker,” and other hits from early in her career. “Hit Me together with your Best Shot” peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was the singer’s first Top 10 hit.
Pat Benatar is taking a stand. During a new interview, the rock singer, 69, shared that she will no longer be performing her hit song, “Hit Me together with your Best Shot,” on her current tour with her husband, Neil Giraldo.
“If we don’t play them, you’ll give us (a hard time),” she told USA Today. “We’re not doing ‘Hit Me together with your Best Shot,’ and fans have an attack. And I’m like, ‘I’m sorry, in deference to the victims of the families of those mass shootings, I’m not singing it.’”
