Pat Benatar is refusing to perform his 1980 hit song Hit Me With Your Best Shot in the wake of this year’s horrific mass shootings in America.
talking with USA Todaythe rock singer said she will avoid performing the song during her current tour in “protest” of gun violence.
Instead, the 69-year-old singer will perform her other classics, among them Love is a battlefield i we belong.
This year alone, the country has suffered high-profile gun-related attacks, in places like Uvalde, Texas; Buffalo, New York; and Highland Park, Illinois.
“We’re not doing Hit Me With Your Best Shot and the fans are having a heart attack,” Benatar told the outlet. “And I’m sorry, out of respect for the victims’ families of these mass shootings, I’m not singing it.”
Benatar said that if people want to hear the song, they should simply “go home and listen to it.”
She said the song “is tongue in cheek, but you have to draw the line”.
“I can’t say those words out loud with a smile on my face, I just can’t. I’m not going on stage or on a soap box, I’m going to my legislators,” he said, adding: “This is the my little contribution to the protest. I won’t sing it. Hard.”
According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 356 mass shootings in the US this year alone.
On May 14, 10 people were gunned down in a hate-fueled mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
Ten days later, 19 children and two teachers were killed in the horrific shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
On July 4, seven people were killed after a gunman opened fire at the Highland Park parade in Illinois with a “high-powered” rifle.
This article originally appeared in the New York Post and is reproduced with permission