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The two songs Alice Cooper wishes he wrote

Mon 27 March 2023 15:15, UK

The ghostly, idiosyncratic performer Alice Cooper seems to have spawned from an underworld void of Earthly influences. Over the past five decades, his trailblazing live shows, bristling with props and illusions, including pyrotechnics, guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, reptiles, baby dolls and sword-fighting, have more than earned him his nickname, ‘The Godfather of Shock Rock’.

With skulls, bats and black makeup aplenty, a Bram Stoker novel may seem a good place to begin when seeking the splendid source of Cooper’s inspiration. But as it was for so many artists of the late 20th century, The Beatles were at the root of Copper’s early attraction to the sonic arts.

In 2017, Cooper discussed some of the most important music of his lifetime with the NME. He explained how The Beatles, specifically their 1964 single ‘She Loves You’, changed the game, inspiring him to pursue a career in music. “It was the first song by The Beatles I ever heard, and it literally changed something in my brain,” he said. “It inspired what [the band] Alice Cooper became.”

Like his fellow coffin-dweller, Ozzy Osbourne, Cooper was fascinated by the Fab Four’s revolutionary approach to music and the attention they garnered. But his epic stage show ideas appeared to draw their inspiration from the other side of the British Invasion duel.

After revealing that The Rolling Stones were the first band he ever saw live, Cooper remembered being particularly transfixed by the elaborate production. “I’m very proud of this: I went to see The Rolling Stones at this gigantic arena. It was the coolest thing. We didn’t know what production was – there was no [special] lighting then, just white lights.”

Mick Jagger’s showmanship clearly strikes a chord with Cooper. As a rock ‘n’ roll man through and through, when looking to get his rocks off on the dance floor, the Stones are as good as it gets. “It may be the best dance song of time,” he continued, revealing ‘Brown Sugar’ as his favourite dance song. “When we’re doing covers and just having fun, we’ll go and play a bar after a show and be a bar band and we’d start with that – it gets everyone dancing.”

Towards the end of the interview feature, Cooper was asked if there was a song he wished he had written. Instead of picking out one track, Cooper pondered two that he felt his band would have suited.

“[Aerosmith’s] ‘Dude (Looks Like A Lady)’ I should have written,” Cooper asserted. “‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ [by Nirvana] I should have written. Those were songs that were right up Alice Cooper’s alley. There are some songs that are just so good, you sit there and you go, ‘I could never write that,’ but those two were two that I really should have written.”