Bernie Taupin and Toto’s Steve Lukather Co-Wrote These Songs With Alice Cooper After His Stay at an Asylum

At the height of his alcoholism during the late 1970s, Alice Cooper was consuming two cases of beer and a bottle of whiskey per day, causing him to wake up coughing up blood daily. The consumption started having serious effects on Cooper’s mental and physical health, which led him to seek help after wrapping up the King of the Silver Screen tour in support of the band’s album Lace and Whiskey.

In October 1977, a 29-year-old Cooper checked himself into the psychiatric hospital Cornell Medical Center in Westchester County, New York, to get help with his alcoholism, and was surprised that no one knew who he was inside the facility.

“This was pretty much at the height of my career,” recalled Cooper. “But in that hospital, none of the other patients had any idea who Alice Cooper was. And the reason for that was very simple. The other patients were all insane.” 

Surrounded by an eccentric group of people with more serious mental health conditions, some resulting from drugs and dementia, and another who murdered their uncle. Cooper described the experience as “’One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ and beyond” and checked himself out after a month.

During one of his first days out, Cooper called his friend and an old drinking buddy, and longtime Elton John collaborator, Bernie Taupin, to help him document his experience in songs.

“I took notes,” said Cooper. “All these people, they need to be written about.”

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Along with Taupin, Cooper wrote the concept album From the Inside. Produced by David Foster, it was a narrative based on the experiences and people Cooper met at the asylum. Using some discretion with real names and embellishing a few stories, Cooper ran through some of the people who surrounded him during his four-week stay.

“Jacknife Johnny” was the story about a Vietnam vet, who was shellshocked from the war and married a Vietnamese woman, while “Veronica’s Sake” was about a man who was committed and obsessed with the well-being of his dog.

“I would throw a line out, and Bernie would answer it,” said Cooper. “And in the end, we really came up with a great album.” With so many stories to draw from, each new song became, in Cooper’s words, “a composite of the characters who were inside the ward.” 

Another Taupin and Cooper co-write, the closing “Inmates (We’re All Crazy)” was also dedicated to friend Keith Moon of the Who, who died two months before the release of From the Inside.
Released November 17, 1978, From the Inside was not a commercial success for Copper, but its lead single, “How You Gonna See Me Now,” did peak at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Though Taupin and Cooper co-wrote all 10 tracks, including two with Foster, there were three other outside contributions, including “Millie and Billie,” a duet with Cooper and Marcy Levy (Shakespear’s Sister), co-written with Bruce Roberts, who wrote songs for Dolly Parton, Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston, the Pointer Sisters, and others.

“Serious”

Written by Alice Cooper, Bernie Taupin, Steve Lukather, and David Foster

From the Inside also featured a lengthy line of musicians and special guests, including Elton John’s then-guitarist Davey Johnstone and bassist Dee Murray, Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen, Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire, singing with Cooper on “The Quiet Room,” and others, along with Toto‘s Steve Porcaro, who is credited with some synth work, and Steve Lukather, who plays guitar on three tracks and co-wrote two songs with Cooper, Taupin, and Foster, including “Serious.”

On the introspective track, Cooper is talking about his past, addictions, and all the things he took too seriously.

When I look back at my time at the track
And I played, and I played, and I played, and I was
Shooting the craps at the back of Fat Jack´s
Come on, fade me, Jake
I’m a Las Vegas dreamer they took to the cleaners
A bath, what a bath, what a bath I’d take
A fish on a hook, I was rattled and shook, ’cause I lost my stake
I took that serious

All of my life was a laugh and a joke
And a drink and a smoke
And then I passed out on the floor
Again and again, and again, and again, and again

I’m a gambling fool with a roll and cue
Want to play? Want to play? Want to play with me?
Put my ass on the line, rubbed my nose in the grime
And they picked me clean
The chance and the game drove Old Silkly insane
What a pain, what a strain on my brain it was
A fish on a hook, I was rattled and shook, ’cause I lost my stake
I took that serious

“Nurse Rozetta”

Written by Alice Cooper, Bernie Taupin, Steve Lukather, and David Foster

Lukather also had a hand in co-writing another character composite on the album, “Nurse Rozetta.” Darker humor around “Nurse Rozetta” was based on the nurses Cooper met during his stay at the sanitarium and tells the story of a shepherd for the Pentecost, who falls under her spell.

Since I’ve been here for a little stay
I see Rozetta day by day
She turns my head, makes me cough
I want to tear my collar off

I just can’t sleep at night
Rozetta dressed in white
She’s got the Devil’s light
Shining in her eyes

Screamed my sermon, damning sin and vice
When underneath, I was a regular guy
My pulpit melted like a block of ice
When a bolt of lightning hit me from the sky

Throughout the years, Nurse Rozetta has become a staple character in Cooper’s live shows, ordering his death by guillotine.

Photo: Fin Costello/Redferns/Getty Images