15 September, 1980.

Ah, one of my favourite twisted lyrics this morning – ‘hit me with your pet shark’. Go on, just listen carefully, you’ll hear it.

Written by songwriter and producer Eddie Schwartz, and inspired by a pillow punching theory session, this was a song that was very nearly lost for good.

In his early days of songwriting, Schwartz was hired by production company ATV, but they hated this song, so much so that they deleted the demo tapes. However, the engineer at the time made a copy and gave the cassette to Schwartz, knowing how much he loved the song.

The demo then ended up in the hands of Marv Goodman at Chrysalis records, who also loved the song and kept playing it. The story is that Pat Benatar was in a meeting in the room next door, heard the song through the wall, got excited about it and decided to record it.

Released as the second single from Benatar’s second album Crimes of Passion, this was her first US top ten hit, reaching number nine on the Billboard chart. Since then it has gone on to become her most recognisable track.