Can The Can

Album

It’s the Sensational 70’s

Label

Rak Records

Genre

Glam rock

Composer(s)

Mike Chapman;Nicky Chinn

Entered Chart

Feb 7, 1976

Peak Date

Feb 14, 1976

Released

1973

Recorded

Unknown

Catalog #

Big Tree 16053

B-Side

"Ain't Ya Something Honey"

This was Suzi Quatro's first hit; it reached #1 on the UK, Japanese, European and Australian charts. Quatro is an American who joined Mickie Most's RAK label roster, becoming part of the glam rock revolution. Most produced her first single, "Rolling Stone," but it went nowhere, so he asked songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman to write an produce her next single. The result was "Can The Can." When asked what "Can The Can" means, Nicky Chinn replied: "It means something that is pretty impossible, you can't get one can inside another if they are the same size, so we're saying you can't put your man in the can if he is out there and not willing to commit. The phrase sounded good and we didn't mind if the public didn't get the meaning of it." Suzi Quatro: "I can hear a record for the first time and know whether it will be a hit. And I knew as soon as we had finished recording that we had a big hit on our hands." (above quotes from 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh) This was the first #1 UK hit for a solo female artist since "Those Were The Days" by Mary Hopkin in 1968. Quatro never hit it big in her native America, although she did have a memorable role on the TV series Happy Days playing Leather Tuscadero. She landed several more UK hits, including the #1 "Devil Gate Drive," and influenced a generation of female rockers, notably Joan Jett. Quatro wrote many of her own songs, but they tended to be album cuts, with the Chapman/Chinn team getting the singles. In a Songfacts interview with Quatro, she explained: "I was very boogie-based, very bass-based. And they went away and wrote 'Can the Can.' We had the arrangement where I could write the albums, and they would write the three-minute single - although I did have singles out myself, like 'Mama's Boy.' I didn't learn anything from their songwriting, because I always had my own thing. Whatever I did, I did."