Alice was friends with Jim Morrison. This was shortly after his death and the vocals were Alice's tribute to him. It is also an allegory on how one rock star rises up and then another one comes along and knocks him off the top of the heap. But the new guy knows his time will also come to an end and someone else will take his place.
Alice has been my favorite (band and man) since 1972. As an adolescent/teen, I idolized him (them) for their onstage antics and their "horror-like" lyrics. As an adult I admire him as a family man who has been married to his wife, Sheryl, since 1976. I may be an athiest, but that does't detract from my admiration of him and Sheryl being born again Christians. Both of their fathers were ministers, and both fathers performed their marriage ceremony. Alice is heavily involved in charity work, especially charity golf outings. Sheryl once said that Alice traded one habit (alcohol) for another (golf). I think I could have picked a lot worse rock stars to idolize.
This was the one I wanted to hear you react to. It has always been a "go to" track for me when I want to hear some Alice Cooper. Keep up the good work.
His album Welcome to my Nightmare is a concept album of a child named Stevens journey of nightmares. It's my personal favorite album of Alice's. I've seen him a few times in concert in the 70's, he puts on one hell of a performance, pure perfection. Loved the reaction, I haven't heard this song in years...still sounds good. Keep up the great work! 👍
Definitely one of my favorite tracks from Alice Cooper. As far as his vocals goes, he was supposedly inspired by Jim Morrison's style of singing. Fantastic track and the orchestration just brings it to another level.
Ah one of my favorite Alice Cooper tunes! They really evoke a western feeling in a cool rock song. I love the orchestral touch with the string section that comes in. And the lyrics are a perfect gunslinger narrative. Great reaction Justin, I'm glad you finally got to this one.
Mentioned earlier by a couple of others this is voacally a tribute to Jim Morrison. Lyrically the song is a tribute to Robert Vaughns character in "The Magnificent Seven "
Loving the positive reactions you're getting from this album. A classic then and a classic to this day. I really do hope you explore their catalogue down the line because there is so much more to this band, as well as solo Alice.
"Desperado, why don't you come to your senses". Oops wrong song, forgot the 'Killer' had eagle salad sandwiches for lunch! I could picture 'The Shat.' singing this, for sure. Peace Psycho Killers everywhere.
I used to sing "Only Women Bleed" (from Welcome to My Nightmare) to my young niece when she was being cranky not wanting to go to bed. It usually worked to put her to sleep.
Justin, so glad you got to this, one of my very favorite Cooper songs. Love the line "You're at peace and I must hide" almost that' he's envious of his victim.
It's Jim Morrison of The Doors that Alice Is channeling here. They were friends and the I wear lace & I wear black leather is a direct reference to Jim Morrison.
Or if at least the others as Billion Dollar Babies could have pulled it off. It's strange how it was just gone after MOL. I was looking forward to Detroit Stories having at least a few throwback songs to the better ACG sound and feel but I think all concerned are 'too clean' these days to give a shit. Might as well be listenening to the regular lack lustre smultz that's all the rage.
I know you’ve already done Dead Babies but you might consider reacting to it again as it bleeds into Killer because there’s no break in the tracks and they belong together.
A priest that's gone to town would be drunk, disorderly and dangerous -- like a proverbial drunken sailor out for a particularly "fun" time. There's also that bizarre juxtaposition of the images we create of the chaste, level-headed, kind, black-robed priest of common imagination with that same figure kicking up his heels with a Colt in one hand and six-shooter in the other.
Killer is the ultimate perfect album. My favorite. Every song is incredible. I used to take Christmas presents out to his house here in Paradise Valley. Sorry.but he doesnt even remind me of Shatner in the remotest. :}
lyrically its about morrison.... how he created an image & what it was like to have to live w/ that as a human... cooper hung out w/ morrison & knew him pretty well in '70. a troubled time for the lizard king.... this song is lyrically underrated. you could apply it to morrison for sure. but its also applies to the long amer motif of the villian. people like jesse james to jim morrison to kurt cobain.
I never thought of Shatner, but yesss, you're right! Another tidbit for ya...Vincent (Alice) is the son of a preacher. Just sayin'. He's also very Christian, and highly intelligent.
His stuff is great and largely misunderstood in my opinion. His lyric writing ability is top shelf. I still maintain his Flush the Fashion album is one of the greatest hidden gems in rock history.
Great band, good track, great album, but can I come back to this side A/side B thing? In my day (cough) in the UK, it was always side 1 and side 2 on albums but the A side and B side on singles. Was it different in the USA or is vinyl so prehistoric that millennials have forgotten the rules? Anyone with a definitive answer?
Definitive no, but it looks to be correct to me, just the few albums I grabbed, Warner Bros, Arista, ABC, all Side 1&2. Probably has been brought up before but, Justin needs to learn the lingo and me, just waking up also. Good point.
Oh, I didn't hear William Shatner. I am old enough to have caught Star Trek on TV when it was new and I had no interest in Shatner's later experiments.
I think you have a few songs left on this album - I would suggest just skipping 2 of them and going straight for the title track -Killer, which is phenom - and then move on to Billion Dollar Babies.
Not a bad track, though certainly not the strongest on the album... I think it's my general abhorrence of spoken word (not all mind) that has me wincing at little at this.
Love the BAND, and this is a pretty cool song. However, for me the strings kinda soften the punch of the song. I think a guitar lick, like on the intro to the song, would've kept that punchy vibe going. Not knocking it. It's still classic Alice. Just saying.
Sorry for taking the theme too literally (maybe as a "message" instead of a "picture"?), but this is one aspect of our modern culture, since probably about the 60's, that has slowly worn through for me: the romanticization of killers as killers. It's trash, and our acceptance of it reflects poorly on us (it has to be unthinking, for starters; one moment's light thought, and there's nothing to admire - but we've all been indoctrinated with this story enough to take a repetition - and repetition upon repetition upon repetition - in without reflection. We all know how to react.) I did say sorry. I know it's just a song. I know this is making a mountain out of a molehill. And yet in a way it's not. I can think of three people I knew, met, or knew the person whose heart broke when they were deleted by some Cool Killer, offhand, that have made my molehill mountainous. Little real instances of the trash pop culture story of the Sexy Killer, all quite likely being outcomes influenced by this defect in our culture. They are an 85 year old who wasn't man enough to succeed in defending his wife when the thugs got too rough with her, sorry, thugs is so judgemental - the outlaws, maybe? ... A guy who survived the Real Men returning to shoot him for no reason at all (except maybe because it was all cool and gangsta to go back to your victim and shoot him). Survived, but he only has one leg, now. And then someone I never met who lived on a disability grant, whose death broke the heart of someone else I know, who, up till that day was invincibly optimistic on even the worst of days. That light went out for a while. If you're a Killer, you need to wet your blade sometimes, my man. I know that I've reached a point where the killer tale is irritating, and that's an attempt to rationalize the irritation. (I mean it's only a story, after all.) I think it's a twist our culture has put in the ancient tradition of telling tales of heroes who win all their battles (without a lot of emphasis on those battles being won for the society, either). It's a mix of that and the knowledge that the kid who beats everyone up get whatever he wants - sometimes for life. I suppose, then, I'd better call those old tales trash, too, hey? Although the battles they talk of tend not to be one-sided, like the battles real killers seek out. Young man vs great-grandpa; man with knife vs man who can't work; man in car with gun vs man waking alone on the side of the road. True Life Killers. Get the next thrilling installment. OK, I'd better just shut up otherwise I'm going to rant about it all day. I do hope that if Putin decides he needs to nuke us all for getting into his nightmares and chasing him around with torches there that he at least has the decency to do a good job of deleting Hollywood. Sometimes destruction is for the greater good. Not often, but it can be. I do like to tell the story of my tough cousin, who was busy being all artistic (that's his thing) and painting a sign somewhere, when a thug came up to him with a knife, and told him to hand over his phone. Wrong artist to disrespect like that. His answer was to punch the guy in the face, and then to keep on punching and kicking, and kicking when a man's down, until the attacker managed to somehow escape. (It's a problem he has. If you switch that thing on, it gets a life of its own, and it doesn't switch off. He's a pacifist when he has a choice.) Happy ending. At least nobody died.
i pressed "CC" , turned the video volume down and pressed play on the stereo. While reading your reaction comments I listened to my only Nick Cave CD and then read as I scrolled down the 19 comments written below. Nick's Good. 21st Century Dylan-esque. Not sure I wanna listen to Alice Cooper after reading how society has allowed itself to glamourise the act of killing..."Carry Me" sings Nick, rather ponderously with gospel-tinged repetitiveness. Why do I annotate these idiosyncrasies ? I'll tell you why. Life is a Mystery of Biblical Proportions. Seasons of Wither by Aerosmith may not soothe our worries but may put this song in perspective. I'll listen once I've posted.
What a song, one of my favorites by Alice!
Alice was friends with Jim Morrison. This was shortly after his death and the vocals were Alice's tribute to him. It is also an allegory on how one rock star rises up and then another one comes along and knocks him off the top of the heap. But the new guy knows his time will also come to an end and someone else will take his place.
bulls eye.... very underrated song lyrically
Killer is such a great album.
Dunaway totally commanded the bass, just was another compliment to Alice’s show. Great stage presence
Alice has been my favorite (band and man) since 1972. As an adolescent/teen, I idolized him (them) for their onstage antics and their "horror-like" lyrics. As an adult I admire him as a family man who has been married to his wife, Sheryl, since 1976.
I may be an athiest, but that does't detract from my admiration of him and Sheryl being born again Christians. Both of their fathers were ministers, and both fathers performed their marriage ceremony.
Alice is heavily involved in charity work, especially charity golf outings. Sheryl once said that Alice traded one habit (alcohol) for another (golf).
I think I could have picked a lot worse rock stars to idolize.
Cooper provides the perfect vocal for this dark ballad....
This is one of my favorite Alice Cooper songs. It shows some range and versatility and creates a character.
I believe Michael Bruce, the co writer is singing the "low parts" on this song?
I do prefer Mr Coopers earlier tracks. Love this one
Great bass lines
Shatner?! Ah, man! Now I'll never hear this song without that in my head! Damn you, JP! lol
I just realized how the string section reminds me of Love's " Forever Changes ".
I've thought the same thing.
This was the one I wanted to hear you react to. It has always been a "go to" track for me when I want to hear some Alice Cooper. Keep up the good work.
His album Welcome to my Nightmare is a concept album of a child named Stevens journey of nightmares. It's my personal favorite album of Alice's. I've seen him a few times in concert in the 70's, he puts on one hell of a performance, pure perfection. Loved the reaction, I haven't heard this song in years...still sounds good. Keep up the great work! 👍
He must do songs from Nightmare....his greatest album. In fact, he should do the whole album!!!
@@darrylvonrokk totally agree, he should do the entire album in order to understand the nightmare..."Years ago & Steven" ☮️
@@sandymiller3577 Was is so weird about that album to me is that the title song is the worst one on the album. Every other song rocks!!!
This has always been one of my favourite AC albums...keep it up
Hey Justin! Happy Sunday! ALICE!!!! This is a GREAT song❗Turn it up❗🔈🔉🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊
Glad to see that you're becoming a fan of AC. This is actually an homage to his friend Jim Morrison.
Definitely one of my favorite tracks from Alice Cooper. As far as his vocals goes, he was supposedly inspired by Jim Morrison's style of singing. Fantastic track and the orchestration just brings it to another level.
Ah one of my favorite Alice Cooper tunes! They really evoke a western feeling in a cool rock song. I love the orchestral touch with the string section that comes in. And the lyrics are a perfect gunslinger narrative. Great reaction Justin, I'm glad you finally got to this one.
Mentioned earlier by a couple of others this is voacally a tribute to Jim Morrison. Lyrically the song is a tribute to Robert Vaughns character in "The Magnificent Seven "
Loving the positive reactions you're getting from this album. A classic then and a classic to this day. I really do hope you explore their catalogue down the line because there is so much more to this band, as well as solo Alice.
This album is certainly a birdie maybe even an eagle for Vince.
Great song!
Alice Cooper "I'm Eighteen" & "Only Women Bleed"...Nuff Said.
"Desperado, why don't you come to your senses". Oops wrong song, forgot the 'Killer' had eagle salad sandwiches for lunch! I could picture 'The Shat.' singing this, for sure. Peace Psycho Killers everywhere.
Ned n Janet say thank you for keeping the Classic Cooper coming, one of our favorites too !!
I used to sing "Only Women Bleed" (from Welcome to My Nightmare) to my young niece when she was being cranky not wanting to go to bed. It usually worked to put her to sleep.
If I'm not mistaken this song is about Jim Morrison.
For some reason I was expecting The Eagles "Desperado" which I prefer.
Which one do I prefer? Hmm… Alice vs Eagles, seems a bit unfair. Ok, daytime, Eagles, nighttime, Alice.
Funny thing is Desperado by the Eagles is one of my favorite by them too.
Justin, so glad you got to this, one of my very favorite Cooper songs. Love the line "You're at peace and I must hide" almost that' he's envious of his victim.
It's Jim Morrison of The Doors that Alice Is channeling here. They were friends and the I wear lace & I wear black leather is a direct reference to Jim Morrison.
This was written as a tribute to Jim Morrison
"I'm a priest that's gone to town", thought provoking analogy with Commando. How about another one ... Brando's insane Colonel in Apocalypse Now.
Together with "Halo Of Flies" one of the better songs from the 'Killer' album. All hail to thee JP.
My first s.casette - unforgettaBULL -
wouldnt it be great if Alice got back to the sound and singing at the 70's
Or if at least the others as Billion Dollar Babies could have pulled it off. It's strange how it was just gone after MOL. I was looking forward to Detroit Stories having at least a few throwback songs to the better ACG sound and feel but I think all concerned are 'too clean' these days to give a shit. Might as well be listenening to the regular lack lustre smultz that's all the rage.
I know you’ve already done Dead Babies but you might consider reacting to it again as it bleeds into Killer because there’s no break in the tracks and they belong together.
100000% agree.
...and you Still haven't gotten to the best track (the title track). What an amazing album.
The Shatner style has been called Pausenia. I think the priest was safe and pure in the monastery and got corrupted when he went to town.
A priest that's gone to town would be drunk, disorderly and dangerous -- like a proverbial drunken sailor out for a particularly "fun" time. There's also that bizarre juxtaposition of the images we create of the chaste, level-headed, kind, black-robed priest of common imagination with that same figure kicking up his heels with a Colt in one hand and six-shooter in the other.
Alice Cooper ~ William Shatner?? Can't see that one! 😂
Cooooold Ethyl. Really cool song. No pun intended.😆
The track where the album title is referenced.
Killer is the ultimate perfect album. My favorite. Every song is incredible.
I used to take Christmas presents out to his house here in Paradise Valley.
Sorry.but he doesnt even remind me of Shatner in the remotest. :}
♥ "step into your last goodbye".... Early Cooper is like to watch some diffus movie
Simple Play more ALICE ✌️
Never judge a movie or a song by a tune, ALICE COOPER never plays to Hollywood.
Alice is not exactly mimicking Jim Morrison here, but a vocal tribute
lyrically its about morrison.... how he created an image & what it was like to have to live w/ that as a human... cooper hung out w/ morrison & knew him pretty well in '70. a troubled time for the lizard king.... this song is lyrically underrated. you could apply it to morrison for sure. but its also applies to the long amer motif of the villian. people like jesse james to jim morrison to kurt cobain.
...best Western movie with Johnny Depp? -- "Rango" (2011)! ;-]
Classic shizz. Hope you review all those early albums!
I never thought of Shatner, but yesss, you're right! Another tidbit for ya...Vincent (Alice) is the son of a preacher. Just sayin'. He's also very Christian, and highly intelligent.
His stuff is great and largely misunderstood in my opinion. His lyric writing ability is top shelf. I still maintain his Flush the Fashion album is one of the greatest hidden gems in rock history.
Great band, good track, great album, but can I come back to this side A/side B thing? In my day (cough) in the UK, it was always side 1 and side 2 on albums but the A side and B side on singles. Was it different in the USA or is vinyl so prehistoric that millennials have forgotten the rules? Anyone with a definitive answer?
Definitive no, but it looks to be correct to me, just the few albums I grabbed, Warner Bros, Arista, ABC, all Side 1&2. Probably has been brought up before but, Justin needs to learn the lingo and me, just waking up also. Good point.
This song was written to mourn the death of Jim Morrison.
this influenced metalliac a lot... bank on it
My shots are clean and my shots are final
"Desperado" was Robert Vaughn.
He was kinda "gay"... (not really) ... "I wear lace, and black leather".
We're not worthy.
Sorry, I don't hear any William Shatner. And thank God for that! Because that would totally destroy this song for me. Great track on a great album!
Oh, I didn't hear William Shatner. I am old enough to have caught Star Trek on TV when it was new and I had no interest in Shatner's later experiments.
I think you have a few songs left on this album - I would suggest just skipping 2 of them and going straight for the title track -Killer, which is phenom - and then move on to Billion Dollar Babies.
Not a bad track, though certainly not the strongest on the album... I think it's my general abhorrence of spoken word (not all mind) that has me wincing at little at this.
This song is about his drinkin buddy Jim morrison
Love the BAND, and this is a pretty cool song. However, for me the strings kinda soften the punch of the song. I think a guitar lick, like on the intro to the song, would've kept that punchy vibe going. Not knocking it. It's still classic Alice. Just saying.
I refuse for you to ruin one of my favorite songs by comparing it to yuck, Shatner. Come on. Jim Morrison more likely…
C'mon David, it is a five year mission!
Kinda sounds like Lou Reed. LOL
Sorry for taking the theme too literally (maybe as a "message" instead of a "picture"?), but this is one aspect of our modern culture, since probably about the 60's, that has slowly worn through for me: the romanticization of killers as killers. It's trash, and our acceptance of it reflects poorly on us (it has to be unthinking, for starters; one moment's light thought, and there's nothing to admire - but we've all been indoctrinated with this story enough to take a repetition - and repetition upon repetition upon repetition - in without reflection. We all know how to react.)
I did say sorry. I know it's just a song. I know this is making a mountain out of a molehill. And yet in a way it's not.
I can think of three people I knew, met, or knew the person whose heart broke when they were deleted by some Cool Killer, offhand, that have made my molehill mountainous. Little real instances of the trash pop culture story of the Sexy Killer, all quite likely being outcomes influenced by this defect in our culture. They are an 85 year old who wasn't man enough to succeed in defending his wife when the thugs got too rough with her, sorry, thugs is so judgemental - the outlaws, maybe? ... A guy who survived the Real Men returning to shoot him for no reason at all (except maybe because it was all cool and gangsta to go back to your victim and shoot him). Survived, but he only has one leg, now. And then someone I never met who lived on a disability grant, whose death broke the heart of someone else I know, who, up till that day was invincibly optimistic on even the worst of days. That light went out for a while. If you're a Killer, you need to wet your blade sometimes, my man.
I know that I've reached a point where the killer tale is irritating, and that's an attempt to rationalize the irritation. (I mean it's only a story, after all.)
I think it's a twist our culture has put in the ancient tradition of telling tales of heroes who win all their battles (without a lot of emphasis on those battles being won for the society, either). It's a mix of that and the knowledge that the kid who beats everyone up get whatever he wants - sometimes for life. I suppose, then, I'd better call those old tales trash, too, hey? Although the battles they talk of tend not to be one-sided, like the battles real killers seek out. Young man vs great-grandpa; man with knife vs man who can't work; man in car with gun vs man waking alone on the side of the road. True Life Killers. Get the next thrilling installment.
OK, I'd better just shut up otherwise I'm going to rant about it all day. I do hope that if Putin decides he needs to nuke us all for getting into his nightmares and chasing him around with torches there that he at least has the decency to do a good job of deleting Hollywood. Sometimes destruction is for the greater good. Not often, but it can be.
I do like to tell the story of my tough cousin, who was busy being all artistic (that's his thing) and painting a sign somewhere, when a thug came up to him with a knife, and told him to hand over his phone. Wrong artist to disrespect like that. His answer was to punch the guy in the face, and then to keep on punching and kicking, and kicking when a man's down, until the attacker managed to somehow escape. (It's a problem he has. If you switch that thing on, it gets a life of its own, and it doesn't switch off. He's a pacifist when he has a choice.) Happy ending. At least nobody died.
i pressed "CC" , turned the video volume down and pressed play on the stereo. While reading your reaction comments I listened to my only Nick Cave CD and then read as I scrolled down the 19 comments written below. Nick's Good. 21st Century Dylan-esque.
Not sure I wanna listen to Alice Cooper after reading how society has allowed itself to glamourise the act of killing..."Carry Me" sings Nick, rather ponderously with gospel-tinged repetitiveness. Why do I annotate these idiosyncrasies ? I'll tell you why. Life is a Mystery of Biblical Proportions.
Seasons of Wither by Aerosmith may not soothe our worries but may put this song in perspective. I'll listen once I've posted.
ironically it's not a million musical miles away from Seasons of Wither. Better than Nick? Well, no, just from a different era.
Nod to Jim Morrison.