There’s a reason why 80s songs have become popular karaoke jams. The decade‘s biggest tracks, with their clever lyrics and unforgettable melodies, make it hard not to groove out when they come on.

From Journey to Foreigner, and Bon Jovi to Pat Benatar, keep reading for four of the most jam-able songs of the 80s.

“Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey (1981)

Just a small town girl / Livin’ in a lonely world… with those lyrics, a hit was born. “Don’t Stop Believin’”, Journey’s 80s power ballad, was written by Steve Perry, Neal Schon, and Jonathan Cain.

“Steve and I thought it would be really charming if we had just a small-town girl and then a city boy,” Cain told MIX in 2007. “I told Steve about living on Sunset Boulevard, so the middle section, which I’ll call the pre-chorus—‘Strangers waiting up and down the boulevard / Their shadows searching in the night‘—was about Sunset Boulevard back in the ’70s.

“I got that from seeing that every night in Hollywood—people coming to L.A. looking for their dream. That’s the premise of the song,” he added. “We felt that every young person has a dream, and sometimes where you grow up isn’t where you’re destined to be. We really felt that we had nailed something fun, and Steve had fun singing it.”

“I Wanna Know What Love Is” by Foreigner (1984)

“I Wanna Know What Love Is”, Foreigner’s iconic power ballad, hit No. 1 upon its release in mid-80s release. Though it was written by band founder Mick Jones, the musician said that he couldn’t take full credit for the song.

“I always worked late at night, when everybody left and the phone stopped ringing,” Jones once told Classic Rock Magazine. “’I Want To Know What Love Is’ came up at three in the morning sometime in 1984.”

He admitted, “I don’t know where it came from.”

“I consider it a gift that was sent through me,” Jones said. “I think there was something bigger than me behind it. I’d say it was probably written entirely by a higher force.”

“Livin’ On A Prayer” by Bon Jovi (1986)

In 1986, Bon Jovi hit No. 1 with their now-signature tune, “Livin’ On A Prayer”. Despite its future success, Jon Bon Jovi wasn’t initially fond of the song, which he wrote with Richie Sambora and Desmond Child.

“It evolved,” Bon Jovi told PBS NewsHour about how he came to like the track. “When we’d written it on that day, it was a very simple chord structure. The melody, the lyric was finished. We knew all of that.”

“But it came to life when the band got in the room and we developed the bass line,” he continued. “Tico [Torres] came in playing the drums, and that’s when it popped. That’s when the key change happened at the end.”

“Love Is A Battlefield” by Pat Benatar (1983)

Holly Knight and Mike Chapman wrote “Love Is A Battlefield”, Pat Benatar’s hit from 1983. The track, which won the singer her fourth consecutive Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, was written at Chapman’s home, specifically with Benatar in mind.

“I was at his house, I was just starting to write with him, and Pat Benatar called up and said, ‘Mike, I would love for you to write me a song. I’m doing an album, will you write me a hit, please?’” Knight told Songfacts. Chapman agreed.

Shortly thereafter, Knight said, “I started playing the chords to ‘Love Is A Battlefield’.”

While Chapman was a fan of Knight’s work, he told her, “This song is very catchy, very commercial, let’s write something really, really weird on top of it. That’ll make it special. And it’ll be that much better.”

With that, Knight said, Chapman “just spit out ‘Love Is A Battlefield’ as an example.”

“I said, ‘Well, that works for me,’” she recalled. “And we wrote that song. It was just like free association.”

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