Song · Pat Benatar
“Hell Is For Children” by Pat Benatar
From the album Crimes of Passion (1980)
“Hell Is For Children” by Pat Benatar appears on 17 radio countdowns from 9 stations between 1982 and 2025. It was first released in 1980 on the album Crimes of Passion. Its best result is #16 on the 102.9 The Whale Rocktober: Women That Rock 24. In the combined RockLists rankings it is #1,066 classic rock song of all time.
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Pat Benatar found the subject of "Hell Is for Children" in the newspaper: a run of New York Times pieces about child abuse shocked her into writing, and the song landed on Crimes of Passion, her second album, in 1980. She wrote it with guitarist Neil Giraldo and bassist Roger Capps, and it's hard rock with a clenched fist, Benatar singing lead and stacking backing vocals with Giraldo and Capps.
Keith Olsen produced and engineered it with Chris Minto, Myron Grombacher drums, and Scott St. Clair Sheets plays guitar alongside Giraldo, who also handles keyboards. It never got a proper A-side, but album-rock stations played it anyway, and a live take from Live from Earth later rode out as the flip of "Love Is a Battlefield".
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Classic Rock
Hard Rock & Metal
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
Also listed as: Hell Is for Children; Hell is for Children; Hell is For Children.
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