Alice Cooper: Welcome To My Nightmare

CODE

Producer: Bob Ezrin
Released in 1975 on Anchor records (via EMI)
Recorded at Soundscape (Toronto), Record Plant East (New York),
Electric Lady (New York), A&R Studios (New York).

Track list

CODE

Side One
1. Welcome To My Nightmare
2. Devil's Food
3. The Black Widow
4. Some Folks
5. Only Women Bleed

Side Two
6. Department Of Youth
7. Cold Ethyl
8. Years Ago
9. Steven
10. The Awakening
11. Escape

Concept albums are things of a somewhat contradictory attraction that either leave you enraptured or running screaming for the hills for something a bit less self indulgent. During the early 1970s Alice Cooper (the band) had already assembled a list of macabre, yet entirely tongue in cheek, loosely connected works shackled together as the "School's Out" and "Billion Dollar Babies" albums. By the mid 70s Alice Cooper (the persona) had well and truly established himself as a showman of great imagination. Whilst record stores were transporting the group's albums from the "A" section of their stores to the "C" section, Vincent Furnier (Cooper) was assembling a truly daring and dramatic work - the Welcome To My Nightmare album!

Whilst it can be argued that WTMN is not really a concept album (indeed many songs stand alone on their own merits and themes) it is really the general atmosphere of the record - from the creepy insects on the cover to the menacing, and at times terrifying performances - which enshrouds the listener with a sense of occasion. Played out like a stage drama, the album soars through many emotions on its journey through the world of Cooper before culminating in a truly disturbing and tragic trio of songs. Generally however, it is a very theatric kind of horror which adorns this record. Musically, WTMN is far removed from the trashy guitar onslaughts of earlier offerings with much emphasis on orchestration and arrangement. Some songs rock, some songs swing and some songs are like icy fingers stroking your back while a banshee wails in the distance. In spite of some of the dated effects, this is grade "A" entertainment, no question.

Staring our journey is the song Welcome To My Nightmare. In a sense this is the "prelude" to the album. Scratchy acoustic guitars and a barely audible Cooper lure us into the web of terror - "Welcome to my nightmare/ I think you're gonna like it/ I think you're gonna feel like you belong". Hey - it worked for Mickey Mouse! Before long the drums and bass kick in to a surprisingly funky opening song. This is the first of many surprises that this album provides us with - and with many people's idea of "scary" being thumping industrial guitar driven tirades performed by screaming brats with painted white faces there are many lessons to be learnt from WTMN. While the sassy horn lines, highly flanged guitars and groovy drums of this particular song are more likely to get you dancing than cowering in terror, its intention is to get the album moving with a swinging opening, and in this it is a huge success.

Next up is Devil's Food - a thinly veiled account of murder in eleven lines of lyrics. "I kiss the tears off from your chest/I felt the poison fright that's in your breath/ I knew your precious life and I know your death" sneers Cooper as heavily phased guitars rock this song right from the get-go. The point where the verse drives into the song's crafty 6/4 chorus and the phasers kick it up another notch is pure guitar effects bliss. After such a blistering start the song settles down somewhat as we the listener are slowly transported to a scene in a museum where a group of people are being led around the displays by the museum's curator. Any fans of old horror movies will of course immediately recognise the voice of the curator to be that of the immortal Vincent Price, the long serving king of movie horror and general source of almost every person's impersonations of anything even remotely macabre.

Snaring Price's signature for this (sadly) brief piece of narration was a masterstroke by Cooper and Ezrin as it lends a certain level of authenticity to proceedings - if you have the blessing of Vincent Price then you must be on the right track! The band backs off as Price lovingly provides descriptions of his favourite nasty spiders, lingering on the gruesome details of the effects of their poisons with much relish and it must be said, humour. When we arrive at the black widow spider Price then launches into a crescendous tirade about man's imminent fall from power and that Price's "precious black widow will rise as his most fitting successor!" as the music swells around him. Sure, it's as hammy as all hell, but it's fun! And it's the perfect introduction into the next track - The Black Widow.

The Black Widow is the most glorious thumping, driving romp with wonderfully thick bass and distorted guitars and a cast thousands singing the oddly timed 7/4 chorus. Basically it's a story of the world under the rule of the black widow spider which sounds pretty naff I grant you, but I challenge any person to listen to this song without it appealing to their head banging tendencies. Plus the musical change towards the end of the song with its leaping bass slides is just magic.

Next up is Some Folks - a piano driven ditty along the lines of "You Give Me Fever" about assorted nutty types of people. The song bounces along and is as catchy as hell, particularly the "Baby, baby, come on and save me" choruses. Twice the song falls into a more hectic (and straight) section where the bassist Prakash John really goes to town. This song is a perfect example of the musical diversity of WTMN - it's by no means a straight rock album, but the vastly differing styles enhance your listening pleasure. In the wrong hands this could end up a disastrous mess, but Cooper and Ezrin handle it with aplomb.

The diversity continues with the dramatic Only Women Bleed. A tender and lengthy song about domestic violence, Only Women Bleed contains a deep pathos mixed with defiance and strength. Brutally honest lyrics - "He lies right at you/You know you hate this game/ He slaps you once in a while and you live and love in pain" cut straight to the core of the matter. Sadly this song was never really embraced as an anthem for the abused - in the mid 1970s it seemed that Cooper could not be taken seriously when he sang the spine chilling crescendo "Black eyes all of the time/ Don't spend a dime, clean up this grime/ And you there down on your knees/ Begging me please come watch me bleed" It is a tragic song accentuated by the gentle delivery with occasional bursts of emotional power.

Kick starting side two is the endearingly goofy Department Of Youth. A trademark of Bob Ezrin production is the inclusion of kids singing somewhere in the background. He did it with Kiss, he did it with Pink Floyd, and he does it here in the choruses. Department Of Youth is basically a call to arms for kids to stand up for themselves and thus became a massive hit across the world. Cooper spits out "We'll make it through our blackest hour, we're living proof/ And we've never heard of Billy Sunday, Damon Runyon, manners or couth" and it doesn't really matter if we know who the heck these guys are - we hate 'em too! Of course the jewel of this song's crown is its irresistible coda. Singing "We're the department of youth/ WE'VE GOT THE POWER!!" and following with rallying calls of "Who's got the power?" to which the kids scream "We have!!" - the song slowly fades in all it's anthemic glory. That is until Cooper screams "And who gave it to you?" to which the kids reply "Donny Osmond!". Hilarious!

Next up is something of a "love song". Cold Ethyl starts with an undeniably catchy guitar and drum intro which sets up a rocking, rolling tune about Cooper and his girl Ethyl - a girl who just happens to be dead! It's all cartoonish and tongue in cheek "One thing, no lie/ Ethyl's frigid as an eskimo pie/ She's cool in bed/ Well she oughta be, 'cause Ethyl's dead" and should not be taken too seriously. Sadly some people do. This song really serves as a bit of humour before we dive into the psychological horror that is to follow.

In many senses the whole album is building up to the next three songs. Up until this point the majority of the references to horror have been relatively light hearted but now we get to see what Cooper has to offer when he really decides to scare the pants off us. What follows is a three part story of murder which becomes more frightening as it progresses. Act one of the trilogy is Years Ago. Opening with jarring chords played on a harpsichord and a creepy harmonium wailing in the background, this is the soundtrack of a truly fractured mind. A mind that longs for the days of youth, of a time when the most exciting thing in the world was when the carnival came to town. A mind that yearns for the ignorance of a three year old child. Singing in a perfectly pitched "little boy" voice, Cooper wanders through this memory of better times with blissful ignorance and occasional admissions of psychosis - "All my toys are broken/ And so am I inside Mom/ The carnival has closed, years ago". It is the escape of a mind that knows it has done wrong and thus tries to block out reality. As the song progresses the haunting atmosphere becomes claustrophobic. Reality tries to stick its nose in as Cooper sings "I'm a little boy/ No I'm a great big man/ No let's be a little boy for a little while longer, maybe an hour?". As Cooper's mother calls him home (it turns out his name is Steven) the hair on the back of our necks is standing on end, and we then move on to act two where we discover what Steven has been up to.

Opening with piano and harp, Steven is a lengthy piece full of superb emotional dynamics. Although the lyrics only hint at what Steven has done, lines such as "You?ve only lived a minute of your life/ I must be dreaming, please stop screaming" leave the definite impression that a baby has been murdered. The verses are played out with Steven seeming to be in great emotional turmoil. Then the choruses kick in with much force as Steven's paranoia sweeps over him - who is calling out his name? Who will discover what he has done? After a dramatic mid section the song settles down to Steven justifying himself "...if that's the way that God has planned you...". It would seem as though Steven has calmed down to a point of comfort until he once again hears the calling of his name. The calling gets louder as Steven's paranoia sets in "I hear a voice, it's outside the door!". Yes, he is about to get caught. The emotional release that this song provides during this section is truly astounding - and coupled with the spookiness of Years Ago is a triumph of psychological story telling.

The aftermath of this incident is rounded off with The Awakening - a brief ambient piece that swells with the tragic tag line "Suddenly I realise I see it all through real eyes/ These crimson spots are dripping from my hand/ And oh, it makes me feel like a man..." thus assuring us most profoundly that Steven is still a danger to us!

Realising that he can't end the album with that emotional roller coaster Cooper then offers us up the song Escape to wind up proceedings. An up tempo romp about escapism (which after all, is what Welcome To My Nightmare is all about) the album comes to a bouncing finale like a movie with the credits rolling!

As an album Welcome To My Nightmare may be light on innovative guitar techniques, but it more than makes up for it with its imagination and variety of musical styles. Sure, it's hammy and cartoonish, but heck, it's still a hell of a lot of fun!