Hit Me With Your Best Shot
by Pat Benatar
- 127
- BPM
- E major
- Key
- 12B
- Camelot
- 72
- Danceability
- 11
- Acousticness
Eddie Schwartz came up with the title of "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" after attending a "pillow punching" therapy session in Toronto. He said the title should be taken metaphorically. Schwartz wrote the song and Pat Benatar recorded it.
It was released in 1980 as the second single from her second album, Crimes of Passion, which became her biggest seller. It hit No. 7 in Cash Box and reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100, her first Top 10 hit in the US. Album-rock stations took to it. It peaked at number 1 on the Tunecaster Rock Tracks chart. It was a Top 10 hit in Canada. The only other country where it charted was Australia, where it reached the Top 40. It sold over a million copies in the US and earned a gold certification from the RIAA.
The song is heard at many baseball and soccer games. In 2022 Benatar told USA Today she would no longer perform it, in protest of mass shootings in the United States. She said the title is tongue-in-cheek, but she cannot say those words with a smile.
Hit Me With Your Best Shot runs at 127 BPM, the tempo of house, disco and most club dance music. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.89 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 472 ms. It is in E major, Camelot 12B, which shares its notes with C# minor and mixes cleanly with A major and B major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.