Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Ballad of Dwight Fry (1971)
Alice Cooper (aka Vincent Furnier) has spent his career making creepy songs that are perfect for Halloween. I've written about his excellent early '70s run before, but as we approach All Hallows Eve, it's worth revisiting one of his best and creepiest: "The Ballad of Dwight Fry."
Written about Hollywood actor Dwight Frye, who played a number of characters in old horror movies including Renfield in the original Dracula, the song imagines Renfield in a mental institution.
"I was gone for 14 days/I could've been gone for more/Held up in the intensive care ward/Lyin' on the floor/I was gone for all those days/But I was not all alone/I made friends with a lot of people/In the danger zone/See my lonely life unfold/I see it every day/See my lonely mind explode/Since I've gone away."
Cooper dropped the "e" from Fry's name to avoid a lawsuit, but he wrote in his autobiography that Fry always played the most psychotic characters in those old horror movies.
"I think I lost some weight there/And I'm sure I need some rest/Sleeping don't come easy/In a straight white vest/Sure would like to see the little children/She's only four years old/I'd give her back all of her playthings/Even, even the ones I stole."
After the second chorus, Cooper's character starts mumbling "I gotta get out of here" and keeps going until he's desperately screaming it.
Cooper would perform the song in concert while wearing a straightjacket, which he would escape from and then strangle a nurse. Eventually, live performances of "Ballad of Dwight Fry" would include a mock beheading of Cooper with a fake guillotine.
"I grabbed my hat and I got my coat/And I ran into the street/I saw a man that was choking there/I guess he couldn't breathe/Said to myself this is very strange/I'm glad it wasn't me/But now I hear those sirens calling/And so I am not free/I didn't want to be/I didn't want to be/I didn't want to be."
The song was on the album Love It to Death, which was cited as an influence by the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, as well as a generation of hard rock and metal bands. It was Cooper's first commercial hit and established his band--guitarists Glen Buxton and Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith--as a shock rock force to be reckoned with. They would release four more excellent albums over the next two years before splitting up; Furnier officially changed his name to Alice Cooper and then continued on as a solo artist. He's still going to this day.
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