Story of the Song: ‘Can the Can’ by Suzi Quatro

From The Independent archive: Robert Webb peels back the lid on Suzi Quatro’s chart-topping 1973 glam-fem anthem ‘Can the Can’

Hell for leather: Suzi Quatro at the height of her chart success in the 1970s (Getty)

As a song, Can the Can doesn't amount to a tin of beans. Lyrically confused and melodically banal, it's nevertheless the glam-fem anthem: a pulsing drum and bass scuffle delivered with a high-pitched screech by a leather-clad Seventies icon. It's by the bubblegum-pop composers Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman: “Put your man in the can, honey / Get him while you can / Can the can.”

“We get a lot of criticism from people saying that we're getting money for old rope,” Chinn said at the time. “But it's not easy to write plastic songs.”

Surprisingly, we have the guitarist Jeff Beck to thank for Suzi Quatro's British chart success, and so, ultimately, the plastic Can the Can.

During the late 1960s, the Detroit-born Quatro toured the States with the all-female garage band, the Pleasure Seekers. She hung out with Alice Cooper and fellow Detroiter Iggy Pop, and built a reputation on the club circuit for petrol-driven girl-rock with a pugnacious attitude. One evening in 1970, she was playing a Michigan dancehall with her new outfit, Cradle, when in strolled Beck, who was recording at Motown. With him was his manager, Mickie Most, seeking new acts for his label, Rak. Beck knew talent when he saw it and told Most: “Sign that girl up and forget the rest.” “Mickie invited me to come to England, which I did,” recalled Quatro.

Back in London, Most matched her with a three-piece band and sent her out supporting Slade. Included in the line-up was the guitarist Len Tuckey, Quatro's future husband. With Suzi dressed in a black leather catsuit, and with the longest, meanest bass guitar in the business hanging from her slight shoulders, the act looked right and the charts beckoned. The first single, Rolling Stone, quickly gathered moss, however, and was a hit only in Portugal. Most needed new material, quickly, and introduced the band to Chinn and Chapman, responsible for the Sweet's biggest hits, including Blockbuster and Ballroom Blitz.

“They heard us and wrote Can the Can that night,” recalled Quatro. It was the first of a string of raucous chart-toppers for ChinniChap and Quatro, although the words baffled some. “Can the Can means ‘can it’. Put your man away somewhere safe for future use,” Quatro explained, helpfully.