Alice Cooper Halo of Flies HQ with Lyrics in Description

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Track 3 from their fourth album “Killer” released in 1971 copyright Warner Bros. Records. It was their second recorded at the RCA Mid-American Recording Center in Chicago. The band continued to refine their sound and style with the help of Bob Ezrin, the eager twenty-two year-old who had produced their last album. Many successful bands have said that their best work was the result of working with that one producer who understood how to take their talent and creativity to another level and become so involved that they become like another member of the band. Ezrin’s song arrangements and masterful production skills were a key factor in this album’s success. Most of the band’s new songs highlighted Alice’s gritty vocal delivery and adopted a more aggressive, villainous attitude on this album. Alice was portrayed as a murderous criminal who in the end receives his deserved fate, execution by hanging. This album introduced shock-rock to the world and the Church Ladies were quite upset, so of course teenagers ate it up as a way to rebel against their parents and the establishment. The song “Dead Babies” was deemed particularly offensive by some, even though the song’s lyrics infer that child abuse through neglect is a bad thing. It probably didn’t help that the band used swords to stab and skewer plastic baby dolls covered in fake blood during their stage shows. But it was all in good fun back in the day and was taken as such by most reasonable people. It was just macabre theater. Political correctness was still some bureaucrat’s wet dream far off in the future, thank God. It was definitely a unique period in the history of music. Their shows became theatrical spectacles, telling a sordid story as the concert unfolded with the climax being Alice’s death. The song “Desperado” was written about Alice’s friend Jim Morrison of the Doors, who had died in Paris from a drug overdose earlier that year, and became one of the first members of the “27 Club.” “Halo of Flies” was their successful attempt at a progressive rock song, and it made the Top Ten in the Netherlands. The album received above average reviews at the time and excellent ones in retrospect. It reached No. 22 in Finland, No. 21 on Billboard and No. 17 in Canada. It was certified Gold in two months and achieved Platinum status in 1986. Written by Alice Cooper, Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway & Neal Smith and produced by Bob Ezrin. RIP Glen Buxton. Featuring:

Alice Cooper – Lead vocals & harmonica
Glen Buxton – Lead & rhythm guitars
Michael Bruce – Rhythm guitars, keyboards & background vocals
Dennis Dunaway – Bass & background vocals
Neal Smith – Drums, percussion & background vocals
Special Guests:
Bob Ezrin – Keyboards
Rick Derringer – Guitar on “Under My Wheels” & “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah”

I've got the answers to all of your questions
If you've got the money to pay me in gold
I will be living in old Monte Carlo
And you will be reading me "Secrets of Soul"

Daggers and contacts and bright shiny limos
I got a watch that turns into a lifeboat
Glimmering nightgowns, poisonous as cobras
Silencer under the heel of my shoe

The elegance of China, they send her to lie here on her back
But as she deeply moves me she'd rather shoot me in my tracks
And while a Middle Asian lady, she really came as no surprise
But I still did destroy her and I will smash halo of flies

I crossed the ocean where no one could see
And I put a time bomb in your submarine
Goodbye to old friends the secret's in hand
With phonied-up papers and counterfeit plans, you never will understand