Alice Cooper: From The Inside (Album) Song by Song Thread

From Wikipedia

From the Inside is a concept album by Alice Cooper, released in 1978. It was inspired by Cooper's stay in a New York sanitarium due to his alcoholism. Each of the characters in the songs were based on actual people Cooper met in the sanitarium. With this album, Alice Cooper saw the addition of three former members of the Elton John band: lyricist Bernie Taupin, guitarist Davey Johnstone, and bassist Dee Murray.

Track listing
1."From the Inside" (Alice Cooper, Dick Wagner, Bernie Taupin, David Foster) – 3:55
2."Wish I Were Born in Beverly Hills" - (Cooper, Wagner, Taupin) – 3:38
3."The Quiet Room" (Cooper, Wagner, Taupin) – 3:52
4."Nurse Rozetta" (Cooper, Steve Lukather, Taupin, Foster) – 4:15
5."Millie and Billie" (Cooper, Taupin, Bruce Roberts) – 4:15
Performed by Alice Cooper & Marcy Levy
6."Serious" (Cooper, Lukather, Taupin, Foster) – 2:44
7."How You Gonna See Me Now" (Cooper, Wagner, Taupin) – 3:57
8."For Veronica's Sake" (Cooper, Wagner, Taupin) – 3:37
9."Jackknife Johnny" (Cooper, Wagner, Taupin) – 3:45
10."Inmates (We're All Crazy)" (Cooper, Wagner, Taupin) – 5:03

One of three Alice Cooper albums to be reissued in 1990 by Metal Blade records on CD and cassette. The other two were Muscle of Love and Lace & Whiskey. All three are now out of print.

Personnel
Alice Cooper - vocals
David Foster - keyboards
Steve Lukather - guitar
Davey Johnstone - guitar
Jim Keltner - drums
Jay Graydon - synthesizer, guitar, keyboard programming
Howard Kaylan - vocals
Dee Murray - bass
Rick Nielsen - guitar
Mark Volman - vocals
Dick Wagner - guitar

"From the Inside" was released in an edited version as a promotional single, with Nurse Rozetta as the B-Side.

How You Gonna See Me Now was released with a B-Side called "No Tricks". This is the only time a non-album song was released on a single. The song is now available on CD in the box set.

 

Great idea for a thread!

This is my all time favourite Alice album and IMO it best reflects the Alice persona. It was great to hear so many From The Inside songs played on Alice's Theatre of Death tour. I look forward to this very much.

 

My favorite AC album, as well.

 

I absolutely hate it. Awful. Slick, phony crap. Toto, David Foster and Kiki Dee!! Overwritten, overwrought nonsense.

 

I expect this album will be a serious dividing line. This wouldn't be my favorite album by the Alice Cooper Band. But it's absolutely the best IMHO of the post band albums.

 

Let me first say, I am not a fan of early Alice Cooper (i.e. all the Audio Fidelity releases). With that being said, 'From The Inside' is my favorite Alice Cooper album. I remember seeing the video for 'How You Gonna See Me Now', on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert one Saturday night in 1978, and I went and bought 'FTI', the next day. 'From The Inside' is one of the most underrated "concept" albums to come out of the 70's (in My Humble Opinion). Great songs, great music, great storytelling. Call 'From The Inside' what you want, but I choose to call it Brilliant!

 

Fantastic album! Also love the B-Side! I was only 15 when the Madhouse Rock tour came through my town. At least I have the Strange Case DVD and a couple of boots of that tour to enjoy. Really looking forward to this thread!

DWJ

 

i live a stone's throw away and work across the street from the hospital he was in

 

From The Inside was the jumping off point for me & Alice. Starting with Schools Out when I was 12, I bought all the albums upon release up to & including this album. While I think it was a stronger album than Lace & Whiskey, everything post Nightmare had been a disappointing on some level. The 1977 live album got about 3 spins, and I never listened to it again. I have not purchased an Alice studio album since this one. The original Alice Cooper Group was the band that I fell in love with, after the split I was unable to get past that.
1977/1978 in England (where I am from) there was just to much exciting stuff going on in music, & Alice appearing on the Muppet Show, ect was just embarrassing.
I have not listened to Inside in at least 10 years or so, so I may give it spin at the weekend to see how it holds up.

Terry

 

I have never heard this Lp, or really anything after this, except for his comeback album 'Trash".

3 members of Elton's band, now that's an odd pairing! Did they tour with huim too?

 

FROM THE INSIDE (3:55)
I got lost on the road somewhere
Was it Texas or was it Canada
Drinking whiskey in the morning light
I work the stage all night long
At first we laughed about it
My long haired drunken friends
Proposed a toast to Jimmy's ghost
I never dreamed that I would wind up on the losing end

I'm stuck here on the inside looking out
I'm just another case
Where's my makeup where's my face on the inside

All got your kicks from what you saw up there
Eight bucks even buys a folding chair
I was downing seagrams on another flight
And I worked that stage all night long
You were screaming for the villain up there
And I was much obliged
The old road sure screwed me good this time
It's hard to see where the vicious circle ends

I'm stuck here on the inside looking out
That's no big disgrace
Where's my makeup where's my face on the inside

 

I agree , i too love this album , great stuff & probably my Favorite album .

 

Totally agree with all the positive comments on this album. One of my top five Alice Cooper albums along with Love It To Death, Killers, School Out, Billion Dollar Babies. Any comments on the best version of this one. I have the Warner Bros. R2-3263 which sounds good to me but I don't have anything to compare it to.

 

I still play the original LP. Personally to me, I think it's brilliant.

Bernie's lyrics are gifted, great musicianship, and a full package theme album.

I really wish there was a definitive digital version.

The title track nails it.

 

Which lyrics are Bernies?

 

Serious is one of the better tracks on the album but is ruined by the awful backing vocals
and smaltzy production.

 

I guess Mr. Taupin wrote them all...................

 

Brian Nelson (July `95) on Taupin`s involvement:
Not a whole lot to this story. They had been friends for awhile and more importantly-drinking buddies. As Alice tells it, they had talked about working together for a long time but if anything, their drinking also slowed them down. So, when they had sobered up. the time was right. My understanding is that Bernie's contributions on the 'From The Inside' album were minimal, however.

 

So who ghosted the writing ?

 

Awesome album! I really didn't like when I first heard it about 25 years ago, but it has really grown on me.

 

I think Renfield is saying most of the lyrics are from Alice. ( I have no idea if this is true or not ). I doubt Alice or Bernie have commented on it. The album like the previous two was a flop and didn't crack the top 30. It did yield a hit single in the US unfortunately another dreadful ballad.

 

Not my favorite Alice Cooper album, but it is very good and I recall correctly this was my second Alice album behind Goes to Hell.

 

I didn't think the post Alice Cooper Band albums were nearly as good as LITD, Killer, School's Out, BBB, or Muscle, but this one is the best of the lot, much better than Nightmare, Whiskey, or Goes to Hell. From the Inside is a perect opening song, setting up the songs that follow.

 

Yeah, I was always curious to how much of the lyrics that Taupin contributed. After all, these were Alice's stories, maybe Bernie just fined tuned some of the phrasing? I don't know.

From The Inside is the perfect opener for the record for me, giving some background on Alice's journey.

If you take away the female background vocals, this whole record sounds to me like what the original Alice Cooper band would've sounded like in the late 70s

 

Bernie's participation on "From The Inside" was anything but minimal. He and Alice came up with the concept together and worked hand-in-hand from beginning to end. Hell, Bernie even participated in interviews with Alice at the time of its release.

You have to understand that Bernie was going through the exact same thing as Alice, if not more, in terms of substance abuse at that same period of time, so it's not like he wasn't close to the subject at hand from a lyrical standpoint LOL.

Anyone whose ever gone through rehab can identify with the ongoing spewing of "war stories" and being thrust together with strangers from all walks of life and learning some of their innermost thoughts as most everyone there is at their most vulnerable state. Not to mention, the fear of going back to loved ones and wondering how THEY are going to react to the NEW you.

It's all there....it's riveting....it's fun....it's what an excellent "concept" album should be. And Bernie AND Alice said it in a way that stands the test of time lyrically.....now production-wise, maybe not so much.....But I still enjoy the hell out of this album, some 30 years later.

Sorry for the early morning rambling.....

Anyway, here's an excerpt from my 1989 interview with Bernie, in which we briefly discussed "From The Inside." I've included the portion of the interview about the height of his popularity with Elton before the actual album topic so some of you not familiar with Bernie's own life in the fast lane can get some perspective.....


But before you went in to make that album [1975's Rock Of The Westies), Elton had fired his longtime rhythm section of Dee Murray and Nigel Olsson. Do you recall what that was about?
BT: It was an interesting period of time because Dee and Nigel had exited – I don't think there was any animosity...well, there might have been at the time. Unfortunately that period of time is a little foggy because we were going through a period where we were not really on the ball [laughs]. The thing is we wanted to put a rock & roll band together, and that's what we did. We went to Caribou Studios in the Rockies (Colorado); it was a good place, it was a funky place, and it was basically a ****ed-up band [laughs].

We were all at the highpoint there of abusing ourselves to the max. It was Jack Daniels and lines on the console, and somehow we got it done. I don't remember anything about the sessions, and I don't think anybody in that band will remember them either, but for some reason it paid off. Luckily, we're all still alive to tell the tale. Actually, Rock Of The Westies is one of my favorite albums, I just love it. But it wasn't glamorous by any means; it was a rough period.

Next came another double album, Blue Moves, in 1976. Following the raucous party-time vibe of Rock Of The Westies, this was a very morose sounding album. The lyrics seem steeped in bitterness, regret, melancholy and even despair. What happened between those two albums?
BT: What was happening at that time, and probably the reason we were so screwed up is that we had done everything. There was no mountain to scale or to conquer anymore. We had filled the biggest stadiums; there weren't any places bigger. We had seven consecutive Number One albums. In fact, the previous two albums had entered the charts at Number One, which no one had ever done before. And you can't go anywhere from there, but down.

At that point in time, Elton John farting would have sold, and that's intense pressure to be under because you suddenly realize that there's not other place to go but down. You know that every album you do from now on is not going to go to Number One, and I think that's the reason the Blue Moves album is so introspective.

I think the Blue Moves album is really one of our most underrated records (although it did reach #3 on the charts), because it was really an exercise in saying, "Here it is, this is us, and this could be it," and it could have been it. After the Blue Moves album, I had to get away because I think we were all killing ourselves.

After that album, you and Elton went through a professional divorce; at least it appeared that way to the public. What actually happened during that time?
BT: After the Blue Moves album, I went and lived in Mexico for like six months and went through some changes. I'm not going to go into that, because it's boring hearing "drying out" stories. But after that album, I said, "That's it, I've got to get away from this for a while." And, at that point, I really didn't know if I'd be able to do it again. So that's where the separation between Elton and I came for a little while. But everybody seems to think that we fell out and we weren't going to ever work together again. It wasn't that. We never fell out. I think we just needed to get away from it for a while.

That's when Elton began working with lyricist Gary Osborne on his A Single Man album, and you began working with Alice Cooper on his From The Inside album, which was a concept album dealing with substance abuse. I always loved that album, and it even had the hit single, 'How You Gonna See Me Now', but how did this seemingly odd collaboration with Alice Cooper come about?
BT: Well, Alice had always been a friend of mine. I think that when you're in a situation like I was in, you have to find a crutch who's in the same sort of condition or the same state that you are. Everybody's familiar with Alice's problems and I guess I didn't help him [laughs].

We just figured that we'd try to do this thing together, and we had always threatened to do a project together. It was just one of those things that fell together at the time. I mean during that period Alice and I were inseparable; Alice was my best friend.

After the Elton thing, Alice and I were basically living together up in his house. It was a messed up, ****ed up time. Like I said, I needed a crutch. Alice had sort of dried out at the time, and I think I was sort of going through the motions, albeit not very well. But we spent so much time together that making that album was just a natural extension of our friendship.

As screwed up as things might have been, that albums still had some very strong material on it....
BT: Looking back on it, yeah, it was an interesting album. You're right, there's some good stuff on it. It was an interesting process, because it was two lyricists working together, which is very odd. But it's interesting now, looking back, because I can see my lines and I can see his. There were things where I had complete lyrics and he would take little pieces out and put pieces of his own in there, and vice-versa, but, yeah, it was an interesting project. And aside from my own personal albums, as a collaboration in its entirety, that album is the only thing I've done outside of Elton's stuff.

And just for some visual entertainment:
Probably not news to you hardcore Alice fans, but there was a DVD release of the 1979 tour supporting “From The Inside,” called “The Strange Case Of Alice Cooper” that you can probably still find to purchase online.

The band on that “From The Inside” tour was guitarists Davey Johnstone (from Elton's band) and Steve Hunter, bassist Prakash John and drummer Whitney Glen. Here are some live performance clips of some of this great album’s songs for those interested:

From The Inside

The Quiet Room (with I Never Cry)

How You Gonna See Me Now

Serious (from a TV appearance)

and finally, here’s one of “Nurse Rosetta” that Alice pulled out of his bag of tricks and performed in 2009:

Nurse Rosetta (2009)

Sorry for the long post.....just was surprised (pleasantly, so) to see an discussion about this mostly forgotten (and unfairly maligned) album