Inside Tracks #23: Alice Cooper "I'm Eighteen"🎂Select Covers & the Songs It Influenced

KISS, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Anthrax, Creed, Dokken, and more! A veritable All-Star lineup apparently conspires to mine all the "hard" from the rock mountain we call Alice!

I’m 15, and I Liked It!

I was 15 when I first heard “I’m Eighteen.” It was November 1970, and while hearing it on Houston radio, I also had the single, whose label loudly proclaimed its title to be, simply, “Eighteen,” with songwriting credit belonging to all five members:

Warner Bros. Records, corporate bean counters that they were (and owned at the time by Kinney National….you know, the shoe people), wanted to test the market waters to determine whether a band of guys named Alice Cooper could or would ever sell anything besides outrage.

Alice, in late 1970, had just started to adopt that feminine moniker, himself. For the couple of years he and his Alice Cooper band were signed to the Warner-distributed Straight/Bizarre label owned by the giddily-outrageous Frank Zappa (and his manager, Herb Cohen), commercial success had eluded them.

Interestingly, Zappa’s labels had picked up UK distribution by CBS Records. Almost as interesting was the fact that Zappa grew weary of being a label exec, and sold his Straight/Bizarre to Warner Bros. The label’s resultant interest in sales figures understandably intensified now that Zappa’s babies were direct corporate property.

Warner brass was certain it knew why sales were lean for the first two albums (just guess). So, rather than bludgeon a sensitive middle America with a full album by these guys……..

Straight/Reprise/Warner Bros. released “Pretties For You,” the Alice debut, in June 1969. It managed to finagle its way onto the U.S. album chart at #193. This one, pictured, was the band’s sophomore effort, “Easy Action,” released in March 1970. It went MIA completely, on the album chart. In fact, I’ve never recorded an album, and I pretty much tied them for chart position. A year later, in March 1971, the band’s breakthrough “Love it to Death” was released, but, only AFTER the test-release single, “I’m Eighteen,” 5 months earlier.

…….they decided to dip their corporate vinyl toe to test the waters first with a single, called “I’m Eighteen” (produced by Bob Ezrin and Jack Richardson), released on November 11, 1970. Failure, if it happened, could then be kept at a minimum.

It paid off: The single peaked at #21, thereby clearing the runway for an album aimed squarely for takeoff in the direction of those newly-primed AM-tuned housewives and 8-trackin’ commuters. Enter Love it to Death in March ‘71 (in U.S.; CBS’s UK releases for single and album were concurrent in April ‘71):

There’s a lot going on with this album art for the front jacket of “Love it to Death”: This is the recalled original cover of “Love it to Death,” with Alice’s offensive thumb later reportedly painted over (instead of the customary airbrushing away the offending digit). Ironically, other band members’ thumbs (and other digits) dangle perilously within view, however partially obscured, (l-r) drummer Neal Smith, guitarist Michael Bruce, Alice and the thumb that irreversibly altered a civilization, bassist Dennis Dunaway, and guitarist Glen Buxton. The white “hype” sticker in the upper right-hand corner wasn’t really a sticker at all, but a white box printed right into the jacket artwork. It was several weeks between the recording of “I’m Eighteen,” its rise up the charts, and the recording of the rest of the album, so announcing that it “Includes Their Hit” was already a foregone conclusion, ready for printing.

Related: Want more Love it to Death easy action? A Halloween deep-dive into another track:

"Ballad of Dwight Fry"🤪by Alice Cooper, 1971💀Love it to Death LP

To hear UK’s FarOutMagazine tell it: “For the third record, Love It To Death, Zappa’s focus lay elsewhere, and his label was being run almost entirely by Warner Bros. at this point. Alice Cooper would move on following the end of their three-album deal [with Zappa].

“I’m Eighteen” Through the Ages

Wikipedia accumulated these facts on the song, and I have no reason to contradict ‘em: Rolling Stone included the song, in 2004, on its “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list at #482, and at #487 in 2010. “I’m Eighteen” was selected by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of “The 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.”

It was voted #38 in “Detroit’s 100 Greatest Songs,” a 2016 Detroit Free Press poll. The song ranked #39 on “VH1’s 40 Greatest Metal Songs” in 2006.

The group’s drummer, Neal Smith, told Songfacts: “It was a song about growing up in the ‘60s, with lines in it like you could go to war but you couldn’t vote [or, in many states, drink alcohol]. We had no idea it would become an anthem; we were just thinking it would be a cool song.

“We were getting a lot of work in Ohio and Michigan,” Smith continued. “We were working and writing all the time [as the band lived together in a Cincinnati dorm house].

“We had access to a club, and we rehearsed there if we weren’t playing a show. Mike Bruce (guitarist) had this idea for a song called ‘I’m Eighteen.’ At first it was almost like a Pink Floyd kind of thing. We’d always been two guitars, bass, drums and the lead singer. Michael was well versed as a keyboard player, so we got a Farfisa organ and he wrote the song on that. The intro was kind of a melodic, haunting tune that built and built.

“The first show we did after they started playing ‘I’m Eighteen’ was the Detroit Auto Show,” Smith concluded. “It was the big teen event of the year. It was the very first time we played a song where the crowd went crazy. That’s what we were trying for the whole time!”

The “I’m Eighteen” Playlist

Playlist Cover #1: The Ejected, “Fifteen,” 1982

Busy mostly in the early ‘80s, East Londoners, The Ejected, are described as being an English punk rock/Oi! band, by people who know about such things. They’ve cited UK Subs, Cockney Rejects, Angelic Upstarts and The Clash as major influences, and recorded their cover under the “Fifteen” title. Oy!

Apparently young (or wishing to appeal to a younger audience), they also sported songs titled, “Young Tribes of England,” and “East End Kids” on their A Touch of Class album, from whence their Coop cover came.

#2. The Pursuit of Happiness “I’m an Adult Now”

A bit of a thematic cheat, granted, but no less appropriate, this could’ve been the $200 answer in the Bands of Gold Category on the late Alex Trebek’s Jeopardy: “You might yell this after you blow out the candles on your 18th!” DING! “What is, ‘I’m an Adult Now’, Alex?” “Correct! And, Todd Rundgren produced this Moe Berg song, did he not?” “Yes, that’s right, Alex…in 1988.” “Good for you! You were the last correct questioner…you select!”

#3. Alice Cooper, “I’m Eighteen,” 1970

#4. The Ramones “I Don’t Care” 1977

Lead singer, Joey Ramone, based his “I Don’t Care” on the chords of the main riff to “I’m Eighteen.” “I Don’t Care” appeared on the Ramones’ third album, Rocket to Russia, produced by Tony Bongiovi and Tommy Ramone.

Related: Couldn’t spend an evening in The Ramones’ hotel room in 1978? Discover what happened the night I did, here:

Keyless Entry: My Night in The Ramones' Houston Hotel Room, 1978

#5. Sex Pistols “Seventeen” 1977

Included on their only “official” album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols (Warner Bros. Records in he U.S./Virgin, UK, produced by Chris Thomas and Bill Price), lead singer Johnny Rotten wrote “Seventeen” in response to “I’m Eighteen.”

He also, reportedly, auditioned for the Sex Pistols by singing along to that particular Alice Cooper song to Pistols manager, Malcolm McLaren.

Related: Personal encounters with Sid Vicious and Johnny while seeing the Sex Pistols in a Texas concert in 1978:

Sid, Johnny & Me: Live and Up Close With the Sex Pistols in San Antonio, 1978

#6. Anthrax “I’m Eighteen” 1984

From their 1984 Fistful of Metal album, and produced by Carl Canedy, Scott Ian and the lads were bound, at some point, to thrash out their Alice, in chains. Neil Turbin on vocals.

#7. Creed “I’m Eighteen” 1999 (UK Limited Edition, Numbered, Colored Marbled Vinyl 45rpm Single)

Scott Stapp’s Creed take a whack at the Coop with their 1999 European release in various formats for various countries (Germany and UK-specific, and Europe). Recorded in Florida, the song also manages to find room on the 1998 Columbia/Sony Music soundtrack album to The Faculty motion picture.

#8. KISS “Dreamin’” 1998

Litigation takes center stage on this one—“Dreamin’,” which appears on the 1998 KISS album, Psycho Circus. It apparently bore such a resemblance to “I’m Eighteen” that a month after the album’s release, Cooper’s publisher filed a plagiarism suit, and settled out of court in Alice’s favor.

#9. Don Dokken “I’m Eighteen” 1998

Lead singer, Don Dokken, contributed this Alice tribute on the Dokken 1998 “unofficial” Rarities Outtakes Demos 3-CD compilation.

#10. Alice Cooper “I’m Eighteen” Live From the Astroturf

From Record Store Day 2018, an astonishingly dizzying array of no fewer than 20 vinyl variations of different colors, limited inserts (like Astroturf from the stage), test pressings, numbering, picture labels, and more (see it all by clicking here). It’s enough to keep our good bud, Andy, at The Vinyl Room, busy for weeks! After a month, Andy, we’ll send a search party (and several replacement styli)!

#11. Twinkle Twinkle Little Rock Star “I’m Eighteen” April 16, 2021

Nighty night. For our final Playlist entry: The fine folks of the Twinkle Twinkle Little Rock Star foursome have been churning out lullaby versions of rock hits since 2010. And, of course, that means “I’m Eighteen,” too! Tuck me in?🧸

No? Oh, yeah…I’m an adult now.