In 1980, Pat Benatar was at the top of her game. She had a couple of hit singles from her first album, In the Heat of the Night including We Live For Love and the now-classic Heartbreaker. Her second album, Crimes of Passion, was to be released in August of that year and one of the forthcoming singles from the album, You Better Run, was about to be chosen to be the second video to be played on a brand new all-music channel called MTV. To top it all off, she was dating (and later married) the guy she had always had eyes for in the band: Neil “Spyder James” Girarldo. She was on the verge of success and fame.
Among the tracks is the little gem, Never Wanna Leave You. One of the greatest aspects of this track is not only Benatar’s surprisingly softer vocals, but the driving bassline. It almost sounds like a sequel to We Live For Love, which, according to both Benatar and her husband, chronicles their then-budding romance.
Either way it’s a crime that it wasn’t a hit single. However, it is still a winner.
