Well, that's certainly a misleading title. But since nobody really finds my blog anyway (hell, I haven't even posted in over a year) I figure I'm not going to start a controversy.
Pat Benatar's good name has been making the rounds a couple of times this year. First it was failed personality Ted Cruz doing his depressingly very best to roast the libs with the one Benatar fact he sort of knew. Now it's in conjunction with the comments from the Rolling Stone co-founder...whose name eludes me at the moment; let's just call him Samuel J. Snodgrass for simplicity. Snodgrass's statement in question was economically sexist and racist, enough to oust him from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation; a club whose target audience have oft cited the curious omission of Rock Icon Pat Benatar.
It's never simple to pinpoint what elevates a particular performer into iconic status. MTV may have had a role in that we all know her video "You Better Run" was the second music video ever played on the channel. Considering it followed the prophetic "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles, which was visually stylized and filtered, Benatar had the first clearly visible face of MTV, staring directly at the audience with an attitude that said 'this is your decade'.
It was also significant, even though we didn't realize it, that Benatar was an outsider to rock. She had been classically trained as a coloratura (which is a fancy word for singer) and earned her stripes performing Judy Garland songs at various nightclubs. The shift came on Halloween of 1977 when she entered a contest as a character from Cat-Women of the Moon; the spandex would carry into her rocker persona.
Perhaps it was the case that coming into rock music post-night club career allowed and/or required Benatar to dissect the form in a way most rockers had never thought to do. She had to retrain her voice in order to sound less like Julie Andrews, adopting the rasps, growls, and screams rock depends on. Indeed you could look at Benatar's output and recognize that rock has a certain ugliness to it, not in an off-putting way but leaning into its imperfections. If it doesn't retain its rawness it becomes something else. And Benatar seemed to figure out exactly how much to process the ore before letting the compositions stand as 'done'.
Which brings me back to this post's title. In honor of the treasure that Pat Benatar is, as well as Snodgrass's journey to the guillotine, I've taken ten songs (X) from her catalog and arranged them as a primer for anyone who may not be as familiar with her work as they'd like to be. These aren't in an ascending or descending order of favoritism, but instead presented in album form, in much the same way her debut album In the Heat of the Night weaves through its ten unrelated songs and somehow feels like singular a journey.
1. Heartbreaker
"Your love is like a tidal wave"
You KNOW this song. It was the first track on In the Heat of the Night in 1979 and through the gate establishes Benatar's identity as a singer. But you might be surprised to learn that it was a cover of the version Jenny Darren had released the previous year (written for her). Darren's is equally hard rock, but there are some interesting differences. The instruments on Benatar's record do this high paced call and response to each other that requires careful timing. It also has a theatrical flare in that you can envision the song being animated by Fantasia's artists; the tidal wave metaphor of the first line accurately describes the way the music gets progressively rougher then backs off before its final violent eruption. And then of course there's Benatar in the middle of it with her voice that sounds like youth that's been forced to grow up too fast. It becomes a character staple that Benatar occasionally holds a high note in coloratura vibrato amidst the thrashing around her, like a dolphin leaping out of the ocean. For an even better illustration of this technique, visit "We Belong" which I alas didn't include here.
2. Sex as a Weapon
"How much affection can you destroy?"
Perhaps the spiritual successor to "Love is a Battlefield". Between 1979 and 1985 Pat Benatar released an album every year, which seems to be the arc for most creators; you get a wave where you pour out content and then you subside (by the way, it's been over a year since I last blogged). As consumers we tend to think in terms of 5-6 year brackets and then we start looking for the next console. Suffice to say, MTV was changing and Benatar was in her senior year of the old guard when this video hit which essentially served as her swansong on the channel. And it was risqué. It was 1985, a lot of music was about sex but we didn't really admit to it by saying the word out loud. But like most Benatar songs, this wasn't about one thing, or one emotion (and more about manipulation than sex). The lyrics indicate a relationship that has good and bad in it, and she's demanding her partner abandon a certain pettiness. If I had to nail down a theme for Pat Benatar it's that she's always siding with love and empathy.
3. My Clone Sleeps Alone
"She won't go insane. Not ever."
We're back to 1979 with one of the three songs on the album that isn't a cover, which curiously I happened to put all three on this list. I'm not really clear what it's about on the surface; one article suggests it's literally a future dystopic world involving androids (although Dennis DeYoung may have written that one). The subtext is equally ambiguous but more interesting, in that the way Benatar sings about the idea of clones provokes mixed emotions in her. Does she envy the hardships that a clone doesn't have to experience? Is she horrified by the idea? Is she her clone? Is this all about the Stepford Wife public face she has to wear on a daily basis? We don't know. And it may not matter that we don't, because what we CAN definitely draw from the song is something in her that gets progressively more anxious trying to tear its way to the surface. My sense is it's a repressed humanity. Maybe the next song will give us answers.
4. We Live for Love
"I never planned to win the race"
Same album and this song 'technically' follows the previous one in a way that it's always felt to me that they belong together. On album you have to flip the disc over between the two, and interestingly on CD the "We Live for Love" track tacks on about five seconds of silence before it starts playing, as if the engineer felt it was important. We've already established love as Benatar's defining motivator, but this seems to be about a kind of love not based on attraction or the butterflies but choices that overcome things like monotony. When you're used to living in pain or isolation or the ever-present negativity that the world produces, love can start to feel like an illusion when it may not actually be. In movies, love is that thing people find, to great fanfare. In reality, we don't get the benefit of fanfare so we have the added challenge of recognizing it. When you pair this song with its predecessor it seems to provide a hopeful resolution. Pretty mature stuff for a debut album.
5. Strawberry Wine
"How nice to go through life oblivious and free"
1997's Innamorata is a VERY hard album to track down but it's worth the effort. It's still a rock album but there's much more spotlight on the acoustic guitar. These are songs of adulthood in that pushing forty area where time no longer seems endless. "Strawberry Wine" is one of the all-time great breakup songs, although at first it may not seem like it. Most breakup songs lean into the immediate emotions of anger, betrayal, helplessness, and grief. These clearly have value or there wouldn't be so many of them. But what makes "Strawberry Wine" unique is it exemplifies the long term feeling of being changed permanently by a failed relationship. Sometimes wounds heal, but scars remain, and some memories still hurt even after you've moved on. There's a certain power to an understated line like "Loving you has been an experience" when it's holding back a bitterness that will never have resolution.
6. So Sincere
"But I'm gonna smother if somebody don't move. Move."
Once more to the first album. There are several songs on In the Heat of the Night that Benatar sings in her 'pretty' voice, whether by choice or from still getting used to abrasive tinges, and this is one of the most effective. It starts with an almost bratty level of sarcasm as she's dealing with a lover who's insecurely possessive; it's impossible not to hear the mocking tone as she repeats "plead and plead" (or 'bleed', the lyric sites don't always agree). But as with most relationships in her songs it's not purely a good or bad one, but elements of both. After the bridge her voice relaxes and the mockery dissipates, leaving a kind of honesty that her 'character' may not have expected. Actual sincerity creeps in, albeit a tough one. We never find out the result of the conversation, but it's wonderful to see that the song ends up in a different place than it begins.
7. Invincible
"We've got the right to be angry."
You ever hear a song for the first time and just know it's perfect the way it is? The first time I heard "Invincible" beyond a chorus clip was around 2003. At first I thought it was some kind of a remix because I didn't remember anything from the 80s sounding quite so timeless, but no, it was always that good. The song is a war cry from the underdogs who've been backed up against a wall. There are plenty of war cry songs, but I can't think of any that quite capture such a sense of desperation. Sadly The Legend of Billie Jean (for which "Invincible" served as the theme song) never seemed to find a cult identity like The Warriors did, and the song was fifteen years too early for Chicken Run. But mark my words, it's inevitably going to get a resurgence in a movie that does it justice.
8. Suffer the Little Children/Hell is for Children (live)
"Tell grandma you fell off the swing."
You know the immortal four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony? That's called a motif. It's easily recognizable, and in those rare circumstances may be able to produce an emotion with no other context. I would argue that the opening guitar line in "Hell is for Children" is one of the most powerfully horrifying motifs in music. It announces that something's up. Something bad. And not fun-bad like an Alice Cooper album but genuinely bad. "Hell is for Children" gave a voice to the experience of child abuse that so many have endured, and I imagine hearing Benatar perform it live is a healing catharsis for the bulk of her audiences. And pairing it with an introductory verse of the lesser known "Suffer the Little Children, it creates a chilling effect. Listen to the audience reaction on this (appropriately) 13th track of her Best Shots cd. They're already cheering for her during the intro, whether or not they recognize "Suffer the Little Children". But then the motif of "Hell is for Children" starts. And the auditorium screams in what can only be described as anguish finally released.
9. All Fired Up
"The deepest cuts are healed by faith."
As dark as the last song went, now it's time to heal. Sometimes you're just not in a place where the light can reach, but it's always there. Benatar's songs of experience aren't promising that everything will be okay in the end, but all things have a cycle. Pain evolves. It's okay to feel good about small victories. And once in a while the zone comes to you, and reminds you that the struggle is worthwhile. Life will sucker punch you, but you can roll with it. So says the goddess herself.
10. River of Love
"You don't have to be afraid"
"All Fired Up" is a nice note to end on and release everyone back into the world, but I've got a tenth song and I'll let it serve as a sort of self-contained encore. I had the pleasure of seeing Pat Benatar perform live right around the time that Innamorata was coming out or released (I can't really remember). Sadly I was only able to stay for an hour because of how much smoke there was, but aside from my lungs and eyes it was an hour in Elysium. "River of Love was the song that sold me on the album. I suppose you could take it at face value and enjoy the unbridled rock n' roll passion of a song that sounds like the rebirth of a water phoenix. Or you could do what I do and imagine it as a villain song of a siren luring you to your death. In either case, the song feels like something out of myth and sums up everything you need to understand about a rocker like Benatar. While she may run with the shadows of the night, she's not one of them. Like all divine voices, Pat Benatar is the light; beckoning you, perhaps even daring you, to follow her through thick and thin, defeat and triumph, despair and conviction. She's the angel of wisdom who knows the battlefield of love isn't something won or lost; merely made into an experience.
Fire away.
