Pat Benatar, ‘Love Is a Battlefield’ – Butch’s Way Back Wednesday

As a music fan there is always something new and great, but there really is something special about the songs you grew up listening to. For me, that was 70′s and 80′s classic rock. If I am in a shi**y mood, I throw in a little Zeppelin or Rush and take a trip back to rolling in my mom’s T-Bird. Now every Wednesday you get to take that trip with me. It’s Way Back Wednesday with Butch, and today’s feature is a song we first heard 31 years ago in 1983… Pat Benatar's, "Love Is a Battlefield."

"Love Is a Battlefield" is a song written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman. It was released as a single from Benatar's live album Live from Earth. The single has been certified gold and is her highest charting single in the United States. It topped Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart for four weeks and peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1983. The song would also net Benatar her fourth consecutive Grammy Award for "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance" of 1983.

The music video got a great deal of airplay on MTV at a time when all they did was show videos. It contains some very '80s fashion and was one of the first videos to incorporate dialogue into the song to progress the story-line, which was Benatar running away from home and trying to make it on her own (strange that she was still living with her parents at age 30, but she did look young for her age). The video also contained a group dance sequence, which was popularized by Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video earlier in 1983. Benatar was out of her element, as dancing is not her thing, but she pulled off the moves admirably and helped create a very memorable scene.

Now take a trip back 31 years with us to 1983...