Love Is a Battlefield

"Love Is a Battlefield" is a song written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman, after Pat Benatar asked Chapman to write her a hit song. It was released as a single from Benatar's 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 made number five on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1983.^[1] It topped the Australian singles chart for five weeks in 1984. The song was finally released in the United Kingdom in March 1985 and reached #17.

Lyrics where used in a South Park episode Red Man's Greed.

Chart performance

Music video

The music video, which depicted Benatar as a teenage runaway trying to survive the mean streets of New York City, was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video and was viewable on the DVD for the movie 13 Going on 30. The single was unlike most of Benatar's previous work, as it featured an electronic dance element, but guitars and drums were still present. The song won Benatar a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.

The original music video features Benatar playing a teenage girl being kicked out of her house by her father (played by actor Trey Wilson), while her brother watches sadly from an upper-story window. She later becomes a prostitute for hire to get by in the city, even though her father feels guilty about kicking her out. She writes to her little brother, telling him about her exciting new life. Later in the video, she witnesses a pimp harassing another dancer. Benatar rounds up the girls and leads a rebellion against him. The girls escape and strike out on their own, Benatar walking into the sunrise.

The music video has been credited as being the first to feature spoken word.

See also

• List of number-one singles in Australia during the 1980s
• List of Dutch Top 40 number-one singles of 1984
• List of number-one mainstream rock hits (United States)

References