And (Ye gods!) 26 studio albums later, Alice Cooper is still making music, and is still brilliant. So who better to present a virtual concert from in honor of Halloween month? Did you know in 2011 he released a sequel to his classic 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare? Well, he did. Go look it up and then come back and apologize for doubting me. It's called Welcome 2 My Nightmare (which naturally makes a potential third entry a little difficult to title) and I will go on record saying it's as amazing as the original.
So I want to celebrate Mr. Cooper's contribution to the season by taking you through both albums. I'm not going to do straight reviews, but instead try to unravel the story being told across both nightmares, or at least my audacious interpretation.
See in case you don't know, the albums center around a boy named Steven, who in turn dreams his way into the fictional character of Alice Cooper. Laughter and merriment ensues. Steven gets name dropped on other albums as well, and (the singer) Alice Cooper has stated that other albums have continued the story started in Welcome to My Nightmare. But for simplicity, I'm treating the two albums as isolated, and I'm ignoring the Nightmare television special because I haven't been able to find the whole thing online. I'm also going to refer to the singer as Cooper and the persona as Alice.
This is all purely my interpretation. Here we go.
(Oh, incidentally, the sales for his 2011 album were sadly below expectations. So if the (average) 23 of you who regularly read my blogs wouldn't mind running out and buying a copy, it would really help my chances of getting invited to a bar-b-que at Cooper's place. Thanks in advance.)
Welcome to My Nightmare (1975)
1. Welcome to My Nightmare
We've got a sultry opening on this. I don't think guitars ever sound as seductive and predatory as they do on an Alice Cooper album.
It may not be clear at first, but Steven already seems to be asleep when we join him, and Alice steps out immediately as the master of ceremonies. In a way, Alice is like Bugs Bunny in a sense that the rabbit was consistently his own entity even if the Chuck Jones bunny was notably different than the Robert McKimson version.
This is Steven's Alice. Being a dream, Alice has the fluidity to be whatever pertains to Steven's nightmare at that moment. As such, his 'nightmare' is a combination of Steven's nightmare and Alice's show, but the 'breakdown' invariably belongs to Steven.
2. Devil's Food
On it's own, this song isn't all that special, it's really just a bridge into the better things to come. Alice makes no pretenses about who he is, a lady killer. Like literally. He's premeditating the murder of an innocent, anonymous woman. Now admittedly this is still in the dream, but it's serving a long term purpose, which we'll come back to soon enough.
Cooper has said that Steven is the seven year old boy in all of us (Brenda for girls), but I think we're going to find that Steven is actually a grown man who is only experiencing the nightmare as a young boy.
So with the song portion out of the way, we get to the special guest appearance. Vincent Price's inimitable voice (unless you're Maurice LaMarche) takes us into a museum scene. Even though it's a dream, this is probably also one of Steven's memories from when he actually was the age he thinks he is now. The curator description of the black widow's personality resonates with Steven, and some part of him (the Alice part) wants to be that creature.
3. The Black Widow
This song is amazing! If you're going to do an all Alice Cooper Halloween mix, The Black Widow is unavoidable. Aside from awesomeness, there's not much happening here. Except it's significant that Steven takes what he's learned about this spider and turned her into a male figure. It's telling what Steven is afraid of being versus what he wants to be, perhaps even the undecided gender association of the Alice Cooper character.
4. Some Folks
It's odd. Whenever I listen to this song I always picture a spider singing it, with other spiders on backup and the instruments and stage hands.
The 'red' that some folks love to see is possibly rage, but more likely blood. So again, we're seeing Alice giving his credo about being a serial killer, maybe even trying to justify it. Is he addicted to killing? I don't think so. I think he just really loves it.
I'm going to take this repeated line "I'm just no good with out it, I'm not a man at all," and set it aside for an important connection later.
5. Only Women Bleed
In addition to being a drop dead gorgeous, tear-jerking, tragic ballad about abused women, it's the most curious entry on both Nightmare albums. Alice is still singing, and Alice is still a killer, but Alice is expressing a genuine sympathy for women who are in abusive relationships. This song almost seems to stand in direct contrast to what the rest of the album is about.
Perhaps Alice is a Jack the Ripper type of killer. Who is the lady he's getting ready for in Devil's Food? Is she of ill-repute and somehow unworthy of living as opposed to a victim in a marriage? And The Black Widow indicates he views people as either predators or prey, but Only Women Bleed lies somewhere outside that simplistic scope.
6. and 7. Department of Youth/Cold Ethyl
I'm combining these together because I honestly don't know how they fit into the story, or if they do.
Cold Ethyl is a song about necrophilia, which isn't a subject that really belongs on an album without 'Nightmare' in the title. Some people online have vehemently argued that the song is actually about alcoholism, but I remain unconvinced as Cooper didn't start addressing his alcoholism for a few more albums.
Department of Youth is just silly, and may have been a follow up to School's Out. I won't spoil it, but the song has the funniest fade out ever to appear on a non-Weird Al album.
8. Years Ago
At last, we're getting to it. Until this trio of songs, Welcome to My Nightmare may as well have been 'an album' as opposed to 'a concept album'. Alice has disappeared and Steven is now dreaming himself. The significance of the carnival may have been an actual carnival from his past, or just a metaphorical representation of his childhood innocence.
What we can take from this song is Steven wants to be a little boy, but he's not. It's tapping into a defining moment where his innocence ended, even if it doesn't specify what that moment is. But it had to do with his mother coming home. The echo of her voice confirms Steven to be the character in the spotlight right now.
9. Steven
Obviously from the title we're still with Steven, but he's still not giving us the full picture. Instead he's relaying his feelings about the experience. Apparently, hearing his name fills him with terror. Then we find him standing over a dead body and experiencing peace.
A moment of.
Then like The Tell-Tale Heart, Steven begins hearing his name called from outside his door, which sends him into hysterics.
So what happened? Clearly Steven killed somebody when he was a child. Whether the sound of voices calling him at the end are the authorities or simply in his head remains in question. Regardless, Steven is a killer, and that's why he's dreaming about Alice.
10. The Awakening
This literally is Steven waking up from the nightmare. He's an adult, with no memory of how he wound up in the basement. He can't find his wife, and he discovers blood on his hands.
Clearly he's killed his wife, with no reason given. But when he realizes that, he concludes with a tremble in his voice that "it makes me feel like a man". Tying that back to the line from Some Folks, we get a decent picture of what Steven thinks a 'man' is, and why he's so reluctant to be one.
So where did he get the idea from and who did he kill in the previous song? I'm cheating by looking ahead to the next album; his father. Steven's abusive father. In addition to having killed his father, who was abusing him and his mother, Steven's nightmare is about him becoming his father, which it turns out he has.
11. Escape
It feels like Alice is back on this final song, and I think he's basically saying his work with Steven's nightmare is done and he's returning to whatever lawless, rule-less ether dream characters reside in. Bye Steven. Good luck with the conviction and all that.
So we have a 36 year intermission to fill with something, so I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the incredible talent of producer Bob Ezrin. You may not recognize his name, but you're familiar with his work. Ezrin does brilliajntly what a record producer should, which is taking something written and knowing exactly how to dress it up and present it. His efforts on the two Nightmare albums really are amazing.
Bob Ezrin produced Pink Floyd's The Wall. Having mixed a disco drum beat onto Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2 he sensed the potential for a single. The band responded to his suggestion with at least one profane expletive that they didn't do singles and would NOT be recording any extra lyrics to pad out the 1 minute and 20 seconds of recording. Ezrin went behind their backs and recorded the infamous second verse where the cockney children repeat the verse. When Roger Waters listened to the result, he conceded that Ezrin was right.
Has that sunk in yet? The anthem, excuse me, THE anthem of youth rebellion happened because Bob Ezrin had enough confidence in his own talent to believe he knew better than Pink Floyd did about their own song. Rock on Bob.
Welcome 2 My Nightmare (2011)
1. I Am Made of You
Oh yeah...this is a song. I rarely love songs the first time I hear them but I Am Made of You knocks it out of the park (and I've noticed I respond well to most songs with Desmond Child's stamp on them).
So we're opening the second nightmare with Steven's theme, but Steven hasn't fallen asleep yet. So this is Alice lurking in the background of Steven's subconscious, and serenading him with a dark delight reminiscent of the Joker to Batman. And despite what the gripers on Youtube say, this song makes the most effective use of auto-tune since GLaDOS.
2. & 3.Caffeine/The Nightmare Returns
Meh. These songs are just okay filler; kind of the Devil's Food of this album. Caffeine has Steven still awake knowing that a horror is going to befall him when he goes to sleep (which he eventually does, in kind of a neat ending to the song). The Nightmare Returns may not have been necessary, only clocking in at 1:14. We're really just padding out our way to the good stuff.
4. A Runaway Train
Does anyone know where the image of a train taking dead souls to the other side originated? I think I first encountered it in Final Fantasy III(6). Anyway, from this point on there's really no distinction between Alice and Steven. Alice seems to be both causing the nightmare and experiencing it.
His first concrete scene involves him as the passenger on a train destined for derailment, with no indication how he got there. There are other people on the train with him who are a bit more accepting of their plight.
Then, crash.
5. Last Man on Earth
I love the character exploration of Alice in this song. Clambering out of the wreckage lands him in a ghost town, but unlike most people who would be dismayed by the realization they are completely alone, Alice embraces it. Complete solitude is a paradise for him, which isn't what you'd expect from someone who loves killing as much as he does.
He only discovers at the end of the song that he is in fact surrounded by other natives, who probably materialize out of nowhere.
6. The Congregation
It's heavily implied that this is Hell, and Alice gets a quick tour of the inhabitants. It's worth noting that Cooper's follow-up album to the original Nightmare was Alice Cooper Goes to Hell, which allegedly continues the Steven story with Alice negotiating his way back out.
I'm not sure how well that album conveyed the concept, at least lyrically, but it's possible Cooper is revising the history here as Alice seems to be experiencing Hell for the first time. Rob Zombie makes an appearance as the guide, and the denizens (though pleasant) give Alice the simple truth that he's here to stay.
7. I'll Bite Your Face Off
The Wikipedia article I'm reading insists the female figure in this song is the same as the one coming up later. I'm not sure where that's coming from, but the writer may be making an interpretive call on Cooper's intentions (and I HATE it when people do that). No, this is exactly what Cooper was thinking: This character is some kind of feminine underworld creature, like a succubus. She represents a retaliation from all the women Alice has murdered over the years. The difference is, she can fight back and win. And Alice accepts her threats at face value (and that pun wasn't intentional).
That's kind of a big step for him, accepting he's helpless in certain situations.
8. & 9. Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever/Ghouls Gone Wild
The next two songs don't have much to do in the way of advancing the plot, so much as to show what goes on in Hell. Ghouls Gone Wild is just a kind of mosh pit involving the undead. Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever has a little more to it, as the souls who are in a perpetual Club 54 get mowed down by bullets. This is apparently a regular occurrence, like pest control.
10. Something to Remember Me By
This goodbye song really is beautiful. No idea who he is singing it to, but Alice is accepting that he's not coming back. Perhaps this is about one of his intended victims that he let live (a concept explored in greater detail on the previous album Along Came a Spider). Whether he's giving her a baby or one of his earlobes isn't addressed. The point is, there's a genuineness to Alice here. Even evil has a human side.
11. When Hell Comes Home
One of the more uncomfortable songs on the album. We're back in Steven's memories, and this recounts the abusive father he killed (remember I spoiled that earlier?). This was also the moment where Steven invariably met Alice for the first time, even if he didn't realize it.
Now this leaves me with an unanswered question. Steven flips out over hearing his name being called, because his father is abusive. He kills his father. But there was something significant to him in the previous nightmare about his mom calling to him as well. When she saw what he'd done, did he wind up killing her too because she wouldn't stop screaming?
That might explain why Alice expresses a sympathy for innocent women.
12. What Baby Wants
A lot of people have very strong opinions about Kesha. I for one don't, except that I refuse to spell her name with a dollar sign. But for the song at hand, she's quite good. Everything about this works. I'm particularly fond of seeing an old school rocker like Cooper embrace current musical trends to such impressive results.
The main reason I don't believe this is the character from I'll Bite Your Face Off is this Devil figure is way too much of a diva to make a casual entrance and then a grand one. She'd save it all for now.
All right, so what's happening here? We've seen what Hell is going to be like, and When Hell Comes Home reminded Alice of how he got here. Now the Devil herself is informing him "I own your ass". I love the way he protests at first he's not going to be her pet, but the second time through he's submitted to her.
13. & 14. I Gotta Get Outta Here/The Underture
Track number lucky 13. Alice has accepted that he's not going to force or con his way out of Hell , so he's left with only one last hope; waking up. He takes an inventory of all of the songs which have happened up until now to prove he's dreaming. But for some reason he doesn't wake up. Eventually, the voices of the congregation spell it out for him. "What part of dead don't you get?"
Alice can't accept it. He protests, he waffles, and he babbles, but he never really figures it out, leaving the story in an ambiguity. Then we have The Underture, the antithesis of an overture, which I suppose is meant to be the closing credits.
Well, that's a hell of a way to end a story. Who wrote this thing? Frank Stockton? But for Welcome 2 My Nightmare we have a unique situation. Depending on the format in which you purchase the album (none of which are the CD I bought) you may get one of three different bonus tracks. It's sort of like the musical version of the movie Clue.
So what's the real ending? Well I'll tell you in a minute. Also, the guy chose the lady, the woman who smiled was the other guy's wife, DiCaprio wasn't dreaming, and the chicken came first.
15. Under the Bed
The Under the Bed ending suggests both nightmares actually did take place in Steven's head as a seven year old. Perhaps his father isn't actually abusive in real life, or perhaps he is. The point is, the night life of a seven year old is horrifying. And creatures do live under the bed. This song also borrows musical passages from both Welcome to My Nightmare and The Black Widow.
Why wasn't it included in the mainstream release?
It's a great song, and thematically it fits. But plot wise, not so much. Even in something as surreal as a nightmare this song doesn't seem to fit in anywhere. Although I wonder if it was originally meant to go in the spot where The Nightmare Returns is.
16. A Bad Situation
This one is catchy. It summarizes the presumable Cooper-Alice Cooper's ultimate nightmare, which is a regular job. Who can really disagree?
Why wasn't it included in the mainstream release?
Because it really doesn't fit in at all. To make it work as part of the narrative, we'd have to pull the action out of the fiction and into the non-fiction, meta-style. So far, our resolution is between "It was all a dream" and "It's just a story." Come on, give me one more.
17. Flatline
Yike! Not a song so much as a sound effect. Unpleasant ambient music accompanied by a heart monitor. The heart stops within the first minute. And then that flatline stays there for the rest of the track before we hear a demonic voice. I've never been able to make it out, but Wikipedia assures me the voice says Steven's name.
Why wasn't it included in the mainstream release?
Tedium, I imagine. Or maybe Cooper wanted to leave the ending ambiguous. But as this track only appears on the vinyl release (the format the Alice Cooper band started on) I maintain this is the true ending. For whatever reason, Steven (as a grown man) was in the hospital on life support, and is now dead. And Alice, having been brought into existence through his attachment to Steven, is trapped forever in his personal Hell.
Well, good night I guess.
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