Love Is a Battlefield

Background

Holly Knight and Mike Chapman wrote this song for Pat Benatar initially as a ballad with a beautiful melody and moving chord changes. After some exploration with drum machines and the band, Neil Giraldo decided to make this an uptempo song. The single was Benatar's second American million seller and is tied with "We Belong" as 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.

It hit #1 on the Australian singles chart in February 1984 and remained there for five weeks, becoming the 11th biggest selling single of the year. The song was re-released in the United Kingdom in March 1985 and reached #17. It was awarded a Gold certification in Canada as well. The song was featured in the television series Psych. In the television series Drop Dead Diva the song is performed by the actresses Brooke Elliott and Faith Prince. It was also featured in the film 13 Going on 30, where "love is a battlefield" is the mantra of the main character Jenna Rink, played by Jennifer Garner. The song in the Kay Gee Remix version, featuring Kay Gee and Queen Latifah, is on the end credits of the 1998 film, Small Soldiers.

The single was unlike most of Benatar's previous work, as it featured an electronic dance element, but guitars and drums were still present. In 1984, the song won Benatar her fourth consecutive Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.

Music video

The music video features Benatar playing a teenage girl storming out of her home while being yelled at by her father (played by actor Trey Wilson) who says if she leaves, she can forget about ever coming back. Her mother looks on helplessly and her brother (played by actor Philip Cruise) watches sadly from an upper-story window. She later becomes a taxi dancer at a very seedy club to get by in the city, outwardly New York. She writes to her little brother, telling him about her exciting new life and her father seems to feel guilty about being angry at her. Later in the video, she witnesses a pimp (played by actor Gary Chryst) harassing another dancer. Benatar rounds up the girls and leads a rebellion against him. As the pimp is cornered by the girls against his will, he tries to seduce Benatar only to have her throw a drink in his face. Angered by this, he tries once again to assault her but Benatar and the girls overpower and defeat the pimp, then storm out of the club dancing into the sunrise before bidding goodbye to one another, thanking Benatar for their escape. The girls escape and strike out on their own and Benatar walks into the sunrise. The final scene shows Benatar sitting in the back of the bus headed for an unknown destination. The video was choreographed by Michael Peters, who appears briefly in the video.

A special remix of the song is used, which was created specifically for the video. It differs slightly in structure and instrumentation, and aside from appearing in the video, has never been commercially released.

The video was the first ever to feature the use of dialogue. The scenes featuring dialogue include the opening scene of Benatar stomping out of the house while being berated by her father and the scene featuring the pimp harassing the female dancer in which she shouts "Leave me alone!"

The video was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video and is contained on the DVD for the movie 13 Going on 30.