Suzi Quatro’s favourite live songs to perform: “One of the most popular”
Suzi Quatro had her work cut out for her in the 1970s. Rock was a difficult arena to be in as a woman, especially for those who threw out the rulebook and glared into the eyes of expectation and challenged it to speak up. For Quatro and countless others, though, the seeming lack of female idols didn’t stop them from surging forward with an energy that changed the game for others.
A lot of this anarchic energy came from being on stage, where stage commanders like Quatro could unleash their raw, palpable passion in ways that drew audiences in, proving they were just as much of the movement for merely being there. Having an all-female band did the trick, too, challenging people to wonder why they’d never come across such a scandal before or why it made them feel like joining something they never knew they needed.
Back then, it was all about that familiar energy that made you want to change the world somehow. “When we first started, we just wanted to prove something,” Quatro once said, adding, “People are telling you all the time you can’t do something, so you get a bunch of strong-headed girls and they go right ahead and do it.” In other words, she did it because she could and because she had a handful of people breathing down her neck, telling her she couldn’t.
But, again, she had learnt most of her energy and resilience from greats, like Otis Redding and Elvis Presley, who, for one moment, made her believe you could forget everything wrong with the world and just be wrapped up in the pure beauty of feeling. Some of her favourite-ever live tracks are ones with the same appeal, like Stevie Wonder’s ‘Fingertips’ (parts 1 & 2), and Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born to Run’.
Some don’t even have to be overly complicated to get it right on stage, like Cheap Trick’s ‘I Want You to Want Me’, which adopted the kind of easygoing arrangements accessible enough to pull in anybody (a real cheap trick that works). But what about her own? Well, she once picked ‘Keep a-Knockin’ as one of her favourite songs to play, which starts with the fist-pumping declaration, “This one is dedicated to all you 16-year-old girls out there! When all those boys come ’round asking you all for a / Date, y’just gotta sit back and be cool and tell ’em one thing”.
Another track she loved for a long while was ‘Cat Size’, “a song I wrote all about leaving Detroit, and one of the most popular live songs for years”. The song starts a little more contemplative than the rock ‘n’ roll pulse of ‘Keep a-Knockin’, but its sentimentality and solemnity make for a spine-chilling rendition live, especially as it’s about leaving somewhere and searching for new clarity. The title is also a play on words, inspired by “the spotlights in the road” called cat’s eyes, but changed to “be clever”, written about “something that sees in the dark”.
Although it’s easy to be fooled by the soothing atmosphere, the song also asks a lot about being in society and asks questions from a place of self-discovery, trying to make sense of memories and experiences while looking at where to go next: “Now I’m done playing with fools / And I’ve paid all my childhood dues / I find the mountain much steeper to climb / Am I just one of the crowd?” It’s one for all the lost souls, a live moment of yearning and existing without answers.
