Alice Cooper’s Political Makeup
By Richard Leiby
The Washington Post
Tuesday, August 24, 2004; Page C03
No more Mr. Nice Guy: Alice Cooper, a shock rocker back in the old days and now a fan of President Bush, says rock stars who’ve jumped on the John Kerry bandwagon — Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews, James Taylor and Bruce Springsteen among them — are treasonous morons.
“To me, that’s treason. I call it treason against rock-and-roll, because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics,” the 56-year-old told the Canadian Press news service as he embarked last week on a 15-city Canadian tour.
Never one to avoid self-examination, Alice (aka Vincent Damon Furnier) added: “If you’re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you’re a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we’re morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.” (We think he meant watching C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” or maybe he meant perusing The Washington Postand The Wall Street Journal, but either way you get the idea.)
“Besides, when I read the list of people who are supporting Kerry, if I wasn’t already a Bush supporter, I would have immediately switched. Linda Ronstadt? Don Henley? Geez, that’s a good reason right there to vote for Bush.”
See also Denis Leary, No Cure For Cancer:
“Don Henley's gonna tell me how to vote? I don't f****** think so, okay? I got two words for Don Henley, Joe F****** Walsh, okay? Thanks for calling, Don. How long's your pony tail now?”
Of course, maybe Ms. Cooper/Mr. Furnier is disenchanted with the electoral process because of the selection of candidates.
As Alice himself sang in “Elected,” released as a single prior to the 1972 election (and given how that turned out, maybe Cooper wouldn’t have been a bad third-party alternative) and included on 1973’s Billion Dollar Babies LP (Cooper’s biggest seller):
I’m your top prime cut of meat, I’m your choice
I wanna be elected
A Yankee Doodle Dandy in a gold Rolls-Royce
I wanna be elected
Kids want a savior, don’t need a fake
I wanna be elected
We’re all gonna rock to the rules that I make
I wanna be elected, elected, elected
I never lied to you, I’ve always been cool
I wanna be elected, elected, elected
I gotta get the vote, and I told you about school
I wanna be elected, elected, elected
[fake Walter Winchell interjection: “Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea. The candidate is taking the country by storm.”]
Hallelujah, I wanna be elected
Everyone in the United States of America
We’re gonna win this one, take the country by storm
We’re gonna be elected
You and me together, young and strong
We’re gonna be elected, elected, elected
Respected, selected, call collected
I wanna be elected, elected
Given that Cooper felt this way and restrained himself from running, one has to conclude that although some of his views might seem objectionable, he’s smarter than Ralph Nader.
Which isn't saying much.
This presidential election offers a stark choice: a rich white guy who went to Yale and belonged to Skull & Bones, or a rich white guy who went to Yale and belonged to Skull & Bones.
(And since we’re drawing parallels with the 1972 election, see also Michael O’Donoghue’s “Freedom Of Choice,” National Lampoon, Volume 1, # 29, August 1972. You’ll have to look this one up yourself — it’s not online anywhere that I could find.)
