"Love is a Battlefield,” produced with husband Neil Giraldo and written by Mike Chapman and Holly Knight, was released from Pat Benatar’s album Live From Earth, which was a chart topper in the Fall of 1983. The single has been certified gold and is her best selling single in America. “Love Is A Battlefield” topped Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Chart and made the top five of the Billboard Hot 100.

While Michael Jackson remained the biggest superstar on the planet and America was still talking about the possibility of nuclear war, Pat Benatar released this moving, beautifully crafted song. She sings:

     You're beggin me to go, you're makin me stay
     Why do you hurt me so bad?
     It would help me to know
     Do I stand in your way, or am I the best thing you've had?
     Believe me, believe me, I can’t tell you why
     But I'm trapped by your love, and I'm chained to your side...

The song shows an independent woman, but one who also feels like a victim. She demands respect and sympathy from her lover. As a metaphor, she compares love to a war, one which neither side wins.

The video for “Love Is a Battlefield” certainly helped the single’s chart status. In this classic video, often considered one of the early pioneers of this recently faded art form, the battle is between a teenage girl and her parents. Pat Benatar’s character runs away from home. She joins a group of female friends who look like prostitutes, but end up standing up for themselves when men try to go past their boundaries. Pat’s dancing is pretty flimsy in this video, but that doesn’t take away from the video’s general excellence.

The image of women who look like prostitutes but think like pimps is very standard now. In 1983, however, this was controversial, postmodern, and most importantly, brave. We were only used to seeing women “prostituted” in music videos just for men’s pleasure and nothing else. Soon after this video was released, we saw a wild looking Cyndi Lauper declaring “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” despite her parent’s disapproval. Then came videos from Madonna, Janet Jackson, and others which followed this theme. Perhaps Pat Benatar should be credited more for creating the “postmodern” woman in music video.

Pat Benatar had a couple more hits after “Love Is A Battlefield,” but has not had the lasting affect she and her talents deserve to have. She has acknowledged that the music industry often looks down at ageing female stars. Recent concert performances have shown, however, that Pat can still bring down the house and won’t need to record an album featuring Jermaine Dupri and Timbaland anytime soon just to fit in with the current music scene.