According to Stereogum, Pat Benatar has announced that she will no longer be performing her hit song “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” at live shows because of mass shootings in the United States. In a new interview with USA Today Benatar explained the reasons why the hit song has been absent from most of her shows this past year, she played the song twice in 2022, once in February and once in May.

“We’re not doing ‘Hit Me With Your Best Shot’ and fans are having a heart attack and I’m like, I’m sorry, in deference to the victims of the families of these mass shootings, I’m not singing it,” Benatar said in the interview. “I tell them, if you want to hear the song, go home and listen to it. [The title] 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 to go on stage and soap box – I go to my legislators – but that’s my small contribution to protesting. I’m not going to sing it. Tough.”

Benatar is set to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this November, it was her 20th year of eligibility.