Female rock musicians have often expressed how hard it has been for them to survive in the rock scene. Since it is a male-dominated genre, female musicians have often been fetishized, instead of being taken seriously for their talents. The case was unfortunately similar for Lita Ford, but one of the musicians who took her seriously was Lemmy Kilmister, who built a worldwide reputation as Motörhead’s bassist.
Lemmy realized Ford was a strong example of a front woman during the period women tried to prove themselves in the rock world, and he was willing to collaborate with her for a song. Lita mentioned in a recent interview with Metal Edge that unlike other people from her era, the Motörhead icon recognized her as a musician, not a ‘sex symbol.’
The guitarist stated that her song ‘Can’t Catch Me’ featured Lemmy’s unique energy as they wrote it together. She revealed that the rocker wrote the line ‘Don’t try to put the strong arm on me,’ thinking of her as a ‘badass’ woman. Ford stressed that the bassist referred to her power as a female guitar player in a period people saw female musicians as a ‘sex symbol.’
The musician mentioned that although she was ‘good at being a sex symbol,’ she wanted to come to the fore with her playing, and Kilmister was the one who recognized her musical personality. She also noted that the song realistically reflected their mood the moment they wrote it, saying it was ‘a lot of fun.’
Ford said the following when asked about her song with Lemmy:
“Yeah, god. I mean, the song has the energy of Lemmy in it, you know? And I remember him writing. What’s the hell’s the line? ‘Don’t try to put the strong arm on me.’ Because he was always like, ‘Lita’s a badass,’ and back in the day, people didn’t really want to accept the fact that you were a female guitar player or that you were a female front woman.
And they try to continuously pin me as a sex symbol, and I’m really good at being a sex symbol. But I was also trying to be a musician and wanted to be noticed as a musician, and Lemmy noticed me as a musician. And he wanted to make a song that was basically saying, you know, you can’t catch me because I am a badass, and I’m off and running. I mean, ‘I’ve seen shit and paradise.’ I mean, you can see what kind of mood we were in when we wrote that. It was just a lot of fun.”
You can check out the song below.
