Songoftheday 9/13/12 - Ransom my heart but baby don't look back, Cause we got nobody else...

Pat Benatar - "Shadows Of The Night"
from the album Get Nervous (1982)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #13 (four weeks)
Weeks in the top-40: 10

Today's Song of the Day is by operatic rock powerhouse Pat Benatar, who grew up on Long Island, and after trudging through stage productions and commercial jingles, was signed to Chrysalis Record (Blondie's label), and released her first album, In The Heat Of The Night, in 1979. That album gave Pat her first US top-40 pop hit, "Heartbreaker", where she claimed the title of bad-ass woman in rock (see previous holder, Ann Wilson). She followed that record up promptly with Crimes Of Passion, which went to #2 on the album charts, sold over five million copies, and produced her signature song, "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" (her first top-10 pop single). For her "hat trick", Benatar's third album, Precious Time, was her first (and only) chart topping album, no doubt helped by amazing vocal pyrotechnics like my favorite Benatar track of all time, "Promsies In The Dark".

For her fourth album, Get Nervous, the lead-off single was "Shadows Of The Night", an epic rock anthem to compete wail-for-wail with the likes of Journey and Foreigner, written by New Jersey native D.L. Byron and produced by guitarist and Benatar's hubby Neil Giraldo with Peter Coleman, who co-produced her debut album...

"Shadows of the Night" lingered just outside the pop top-10 for a month, though the song did rocket to #3 on the rock radio chart. It also went top-20 in Australia and Canada, and was her first charting hit in England. But to cap it all off, Benatar won the Grammy for Best Female Rock Performance with this song in 1983.

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Pat wasn't the first to record "Shadows Of The Night" - it was 70s also-ran Rachel Sweet a year before...

Disney star/current mess Ashley Tisdale um, covered the song in her Picture Perfect movie in 2008...

Mary J. Blige sang "Shadows Of The Night" in the movie Rock Of Ages earlier this year...

Meanwhile, country trio Rascal Flatts were sued by Byron for cribbing the hook from his song for their "No Reins". They deny it, but I don't see how. Check it out..

Finally, here's the Pop Up Video clip for the song (the sounds a little more muffled). It's pretty cool to see the backstory of the cinematic video...

Up tomorrow: An Eagle airs it all out.