Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 128

August 17, 2026 /

Chart Week: August 4, 1984
Song: “The Warrior” – Scandal featuring Patty Smyth
Chart Position: #33, sixth week on the chart. Peaked at #7 for two weeks in September.

Who were the biggest songwriters of the Eighties? I’m not talking about Prince, Lionel Richie, etc, multi-platinum artists who wrote their own music. No, I’m talking about the songwriters for hire who cranked out hit after hit for other acts.

Unless you subscribed to American Songwriter back in the day, I doubt most of you could rattle off anyone who got their names in parenthesis next to record titles when they didn’t actually sing the song.

If this was your area of expertise, however, the name Holly Knight would pop into your head pretty quickly. To folks who knew, she was as sure a bet to write a hit as anyone in the Eighties.

Here are a few of the songs she wrote or co-wrote in the 1980s:

  • “Love Is A Battlefield” and “Invincible” by Pat Benatar
  • “Rag Doll,” Aerosmith
  • “Obsession,” Animotion
  • “Better Be Good To Me,” and “One Of The Living,” Tina Turner
  • “Stick To Your Guns,” Bon Jovi
  • “Pleasure and Pain,” Divinyls
  • “Never,” Heart

She was also in the band Device, which had the fine, minor hit “Hanging On A Heart Attack” in 1986.1

Go check out the Songs Credited section of her Wikipedia page. She wrote a shitload of music!

Knight’s song from that era that has probably survived the best is Scandal’s only Top 40 hit, “The Warrior.”2

(“Only Top 40 hit?!?!” I can hear some of you asking. Don’t worry, we’ll get there.)

“The Warrior” is the finest example of the traits that were present in most of Knight’s songs. Middle-of-the-road enough for pop stations, enough swagger for rock stations. Guitar, but not too much guitar, so listeners of all generations could enjoy it together. Uplifting music and soaring vocals. The entire piece is structured to elicit an emotional reaction from the listener, but never gets too pinned down by its lyrics to be about anything specific. More simply stated, perfect, mindless pop music.

Oh, those lyrics. Yeesh. It’s a good thing Knight could write a hell of a hook because her words don’t often stand up to scrutiny.

“The Warrior” was filled with bizarre lines that seem to point in one direction for the song’s meaning.

Well, isn’t love primitive?
A wild gift that you wanna give
Break out of captivity
And follow me stereo jungle child…

Who’s the hunter, who’s the game?

I don’t wanna tame your animal style
You won’t be caged in the call of the wild

I always assumed the song was about sex, likely of the wild, animalistic style.3 But Knight said that in “The Warrior” she made a conscious decision to shift what she was writing about. She wanted to “write about fighting for something, instead of just being against something.”

Uhhhh, OK.

Noble pursuit. But what is her narrator fighting for in “The Warrior”? The whole “shootin’ at the walls of heartache” thing implies fighting, for sure.4 But she’s more fighting against heartache, right? Is her Warrior running around, keeping people from breaking up, like some relationship superhero? That might be kind of cool, and qualify as fighting for something, even if it isn’t exactly fighting for peace or keeping kids safe or protecting the environment.

The line that really bothers me, though, comes at the end of the chorus:

Well, I am the warrior
And heart to heart you’ll win
If you survive

If you survive?!?! That seems like a pretty big risk! Was Knight saying it is worth fighting to keep a relationship alive, but the process might kill you? Color me pro-breakup if those are the only two choices. To put it mathematically:

Heartache and loneliness > Being dead

No doubt I’m giving Knight’s words too much literal attention. She was hardly the first or last songwriter to pen lyrics that make no sense when you read them without the context of the music and vocals. I think it’s pretty clear Knight wrote with a general idea in her head of what she wanted to say, but the melody was more important than the words she attached to it.

Which brings us to where “The Warrior” really shines: Patty Smyth and Scandal’s performance.

This track cooks from the beginning. Those bold, immediate guitar lines. Smyth’s repeated “Ohhhhhhhs.” Right away you know you’re in for something special. While the band never elevates much from that opening, neither do they lose their initial momentum. Smyth’s voice may not have been quite as powerful as Benatar’s,5 but she gives her all to “The Warrior.” It’s the kind of performance that makes you smile because you know she sang her ass off to get there. It is her voice that elevates the track, turning it into something memorable and classic.

The music and vocals combine to deliver the message that I think Knight was going for. To remain positive in the face of negativity. To believe in yourself. To seize the day. To never stop fighting. Etc, etc, etc. Banal, greeting cards/motivational poster type sentiments. While the words may be corny, the music carrying them will make you a believer.

Back to me saying Scandal (featuring Patty Smyth!) was a One Hit Wonder. Some of you may argue against this. I certainly did for years.

Our mistake is thinking that the band’s 1982, New Wave classic “Goodbye To You” cracked the Top 40.

It did not! While it reached #5 on the Mainstream Rock chart, it stalled out at #65 on the Hot 100. Which seems crazy to those of us who were listening to the radio in the Eighties, because it sure seemed like “Goodbye To You” was a hit.

I think what actually happened was DJs (and MTV) knew it was a good song that never got its due and began playing it again after “The Warrior” hit. So many children of the Eighties remember it from its 1982 run, then that second life tricked us into believing it was more successful than it actually was. It also seemed like “Goodbye To You” appeared on a lot of Eighties compilation CDs I bought a decade later, which added to its legend. Great song, but not a radio hit.

“Hands Tied,” the follow up to “The Warrior,” stalled at #41, denying the band their best shot at a second chart hit. Smyth was in the process of leaving the band just as “The Warrior” was breaking, and they never had another shot after 1984.

Jokes about Knight’s lyrics aside, “The Warrior” is a definite classic of its era. Heart to heart, she won. 8/10

1. Peaked at #35.
2. Her co-writer was Nick Gilder, most famous for his 1978 #1 hit “Hot Child In The City.” I’ve nearly written about his record a couple times, mostly because from when I first heard it when I was seven until much, much later in life, I was convinced a woman sang it.
3. Whatever the fuck that means.
4. BTW those are some of the funnest bad lyrics ever. I defy you to sing them and not match Smyth’s finger pistols she shoots in the video.
5. No shame there; Benatar trained as an opera singer before turning to rock.