Hans 2021 Song Draft: Round Seven-Pick Ten-Somebody’s Baby-Pat Benatar (1993)
Hanspostcard has a song draft challenge. This is my Round Seven pick.
Pat Benatar exploded on the music scene in the Summer/Fall of 1979 with her debut album In The Heat of the Night. I was in 8th grade and the first song I remember hearing on the radio from the album was Heartbreaker. I went to my hometown’s only mall and headed into a store called Stereo Village. I wanted this song and, when I asked for it, the guy trying to help me automatically thought I was talking about Led Zepplin. When I mentioned Pat Benatar’s song, he didn’t know what I was talking about. He told me to sing some of the music for him…so, my 13 year old self obliged, right there in the middle of the store, “in front of God and everybody” (Southern colloquialism). He still didn’t know the song but, said “Nice voice!” I never did get that 45 and a few months later, rolling into the new decade, We Live For Love was released in February and, I liked it even better than Heartbreaker. Crimes of Passion, her sophomore album, came out the following August and the hits kept coming. You Better Run (The Young Rascals cover) became the second video broadcast on the debut of MTV, behind Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles (a 45 I managed to get my hands on). I was a devoted fan at that point without owning a single song or album. By the time of my 16th birthday, a young man I was dating presented me with the Crimes of Passion album. I was overjoyed.
I nearly got to see her perform during the 1986 Seven the Hard Way tour. It started in January 1986 and stopped, abruptly, in April. She was a mom by then and family pressures caused cancellations. Greensboro Coliseum lost out. I did get to see her for the Can’t Stop Rockin’ tour in 1995 in Raleigh. Prior to those two, my mother considered me too young to see the earlier concerts. 😭
Gravity’s Rainbow was her ninth, and the last studio album to be in the Billboard 200 chart in the top 100s, peaking at #85 on June 19, 1993 and making it to #44 in Canada for one week on July 31, 1993. Named after the Thomas Pynchon novel, it was also the last album released on Chrysalis Records. It was not one of her better albums, statistically speaking but, it yielded three singles, two of which, I love. My favorite album of hers is, of course, the tour that got cancelled in 1986. That being said, after all these years of her music catalog, Somebody’s Baby is my favorite single, released July 5, 1993 (my second favorite single is Le Bel Age). She and Spyder James had already geared down quite a bit, releasing the blues-themed True Love in 1991, to much less fanfare than Wide Awake in Dreamland from 1988. True Love was her first album that did not rate with RIAA.
Somebody’s Baby did not chart on Billboard but, it did chart in the UK on the Singles Chart (#48), in Canada (#41) and in New Zealand (#36).
I am a fan of Benatar like Hans & Max are of the Beatles. I love this one because of the lyrics, the mood, the blend of the music and her stunning voice, though, in this piece, it is not quite as “up there” as when she sings Invincible (she has a four octave range). I am normally indifferent to most lyrics, choosing to immerse myself in musical arrangements and wonderful voices but, the writing speaks to my heart and I confess that, the first time I heard this, it brought me to tears. ~Vic
Additional:
BenatarGiraldo (Official Website)
Gravity’s Rainbow (RockWired/Brian Lush/06-12-2018)
Pat Benatar (Hip Online/01-05-2008)
Pat Benatar: Gravity’s Rainbow (Rolling Stone/Andrea Odintz/2003/Web Archive)
Richmond: Benatar’s Rise to Fame (Richmond Times-Dispatch/Nicole Kappatos/04-11-2017/Web Archive)
Unofficial Video?
Live On Leno
Regis & Kathie Lee Show (Stripped Down Short Version)
Cosmic-Observation 
October 7, 2021 at 8:29 PM
There is something about Pat Benatars voice. She is a great singer.
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October 7, 2021 at 11:37 PM
I so agree.
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October 7, 2021 at 11:06 PM
I love Pat Benatar! Somebody’s Baby is just a great song all around. She has such a fantastic voice. Personally, I LOVED True Love. I believe I have blogged about the title track, which is so sultry and smooth. I heard her do this on Carson and immediately ran out to get the album.
I could listen to Pat sing all day! Love her! Nice pick!
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October 7, 2021 at 11:41 PM
You and Max are the only two that have heard it. The others were scratching their heads.
I wish I had seen her on Carson. I wonder if there is YT video of it.
She could sing me the phone book, as could Adele & the Indigo Girls.
Thanks!
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October 8, 2021 at 12:16 AM
Here is So Long and Bloodshot Eyes …
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October 8, 2021 at 2:37 AM
Thanks!
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October 8, 2021 at 3:19 AM
Anytime, buddy!!
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October 8, 2021 at 1:48 PM
😁
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October 8, 2021 at 12:16 AM
Here is The Good Life and True Love
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October 8, 2021 at 2:40 AM
Thanks, again!
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October 8, 2021 at 6:38 AM
have not heard from you in awhile
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October 8, 2021 at 1:49 PM
I haven’t seen you in my feed…hmmm…
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October 8, 2021 at 1:53 PM
Had to re-follow. 🤔🤨
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October 8, 2021 at 9:48 PM
For the longest time the only thing I knew Pat Benatar for was ‘Love Is a Battlefield’. This sounds very different, but it’s cool
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October 9, 2021 at 3:37 AM
She even states in an interview that her music did not translate well to the UK. She recognized that Brits weren’t really all that interested in her music.
I was also amused when she stated that she wanted to be Robert Plant. Damn, she is something….talk about “drive.” She is 68 and Spyder is 66…and they are back touring, again. She still has “pipes.” And, good luck trying to see her. Most venues demand either vaccination or a negative test within a 72 hour window (testing with a PCR test, that doesn’t test for viruses…that the CDC is scrapping in December *facepalm*).
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October 10, 2021 at 4:14 AM
I’ve heard of lost of British bands not translating well in the US – the Kinks, the Jam, Oasis among many others – but not so much the other way. Could well be true though. Maybe she just wasn’t pushed that much by the label, either. ‘Love Is a Battlefield’, the one I knew, was only a #49 in the UK.
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October 10, 2021 at 11:52 PM
Interestingly, this song charted in the UK but, not here. Bizarre. And, as popular as she was/is, she never got a #1 Billboard song. She did get a #1 album with Fire & Ice, tho…
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November 4, 2021 at 2:51 PM
I’ve said it in Han’s site…man i’m WAY behind. I do like this song and her look for this one.
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November 4, 2021 at 7:06 PM
Hey. We’ve both been busy.
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