“If She Can Do It, She Can Have It”: The Bruce Springsteen Song that Landed Patti Smith Her First Hit

In 1977, Patti Smith released the single “Because the Night,” which rose to No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single helped her find mainstream success with the 1978 album Easter, and became her first official commercial hit. However, the song was initially a Bruce Springsteen tune that he couldn’t quite work out.

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“Because the Night” was recorded in 1977 while Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band were working on Darkness On the Edge of Town. However, it was simply the melody with some mumbled lyrics over top, and Springsteen couldn’t quite get it to work. His engineer, Jimmy Iovine, was working with Patti Smith at the same studio producing Easter. Iovine recommended Smith for the song, and, according to Iovine, Springsteen said, “If she can do it, she can have it.”

“[Bruce Springsteen] had a great chorus and a very anthemic piece of music in my key, and he gave it to me,” Smith explained during a panel for The New Yorker Festival in 2015. She went on to describe the inspiration behind one particular line that she added to the song: “love is a ring / the telephone.”

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Patti Smith Explains the Origin of “Because the Night” Lyrics Inspired by Husband Fred “Sonic” Smith

“At the time I had met my future husband Fred [‘Sonic’ Smith], and we had a long distance relationship,” she said. “Fred was living in Detroit and I was living in New York … and long distance calls cost a lot of money so we only got to talk to each other once a week … so one night I was waiting for him [and] Bruce had given me this music and I had sort of neglected it, and Fred was supposed to call me at 7:30 and then 8:30 came and then 9:30 … and I know some girls will be cool and just leave but I’m not that kind of girl, I’ll wait and wait and wait.”

Smith continued, “So I didn’t know what to do with myself so I picked up this cassette with Bruce’s music and I wrote some lyrics to occupy my time. And Fred called me [at] about midnight, and by then I had written the lyrics to what would become my most successful song. And that’s why in this song it has these lines ‘have I doubt when I’m alone / love is a ring / the telephone’ because I was waiting for a phone call from Fred.”

Patti Smith first performed “Because the Night” on her 31st birthday at CBGB. Bruce Springsteen joined her on vocals and guitar, and he often performed the song with his original lyrics while on the Darkness Tour, even though it wasn’t released on the album. The Springsteen version remained an unreleased deep cut, but for Patti Smith, “Because the Night” was the beginning of her mainstream success.

Featured Image by Richard E. Aaron/Redferns