In 1975, Alice Cooper had already made his mark as one of music’s most provocative artists, even earning the nickname the Godfather of Shock Rock. But his Welcome to My Nightmare album took things over the edge, attracting the attention of one of the most famous newspaper columnists of the era.
A concept album, Welcome to My Nightmare featured one of Cooper’s most controversial tracks, “Cold Ethyl,” which detailed the album’s central character Stephen’s nightmare about a tryst with a corpse.
Ultimate Classic Rock ranked “Cold Ethyl” among the creepiest rock songs of all time, begging the question, “How could Alice Cooper shock and anger advice columnist Ann Landers with a song in which he sincerely pledges to love his woman even if he lives until he’s 97? Well, it would probably help to know the subject of 1975’s ‘Cold Ethyl’ is deceased, right?”
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Landers, the twin sister of Dear Abby columnist Abigail Van Buren, was one of the most popular nationally syndicated advice columnists of the time. Several years after “Cold Ethyl” was released, she wrote a column criticizing the song and calling it unsustainable for kids.
When Cooper responded to her, Landers actually published his letter in her column in 1979.
“I’m really sorry you found that old song of mine crude and offensive,” the rocker wrote. “Actually, ‘Cold Ethyl’ is just a harmless number about necrophilia. The point I want to make is that the kids are not bothered by this — their parents are. The kids see the song and gruesome antics, like with the guillotine, for exactly what it is — satire, done with a sense of humor to a rock ‘n’ roll beat. Kids know I am harmless. It’s their parents that make me out to be some kind of a monster.”
Landers responded with: “For those who don’t know what necrophilia is, it’s sexual intercourse with someone who is dead. You can call it funny if you want to, Alice. I call it sick.”
Landers also slammed Cooper’s gory stage antics and told him, “You have in your group some exceptionally talented performers, and you’re no slouch yourself, Alice. I just wish you’d clean up your act.”
Cooper once recalled his exchange with Landers as one of the most laughable bits of press he ever received.
“Ann Landers—every housewife in America read Ann Landers every day in the paper, and one of the funniest things was that when Nightmare came out, she decided that “Cold Ethyl,” which is about necrophilia in a very comical way, was going to change the entire complexion of our youth,” he told Tampa Bay’s Creative Loafing in a 2022 interview. “I had read the thing, and I was just laughing.”
“I wrote a letter back saying, ’Listen, Ann. If there is an incredible rash of necrophilia because of this song, then I’m guilty. I don’t think there will be. Get a sense of humor,’ you know?” Cooper continued. “Because it was totally written as a comedy song, but it was a very cool rock and roll song, and the same time, it was part of this kid’s nightmare.”
Cooper, now 78, recently said his stage persona is often misunderstood.
“There’s never been anything satanic about Alice Cooper because I come from a Christian home,” he told BBC Breakfast in October 2026, while promoting his memoir Devil on My Shoulder. “I’m Christian now. I would never do anything satanic in my show. But it got interpreted like that because it was theatrical and nobody knew what to do with it.”
He also told BBC 6 Music that off stage he’s just a regular grandpa.
“I have five grandchildren,” Cooper said. “I’ve been married 50 years. Go to church on Sunday. Play golf every day. So I’m nothing like the character I play. … I invented Alice to be my favorite rock star. That’s really what it was.”
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