That question or something like it may well have been on the minds of many a confused adult back in the early years of the Nixon era, when a strange band with a taste for Grand Guignol excess finally hit the Top 40. As has since become common among bands which traffick heavily in false eyelashes, mascara, violence and sadism, the band Alice Cooper (which would only later become associated with a single person) was the stuff of myths and legends, and songs like this one made many a heart tremble. Hearing it today it still sends an eerie shiver -- despite the fact that the subject matter is now the stuff of the daily paper. Note: the word "agrophile" was possibly a neologism on Cooper's part, but you can find it a lot of on-line dictionaries: "something which thrives or lives in cultivated soil." Or, as we call them, dirtbags.
My Trusted MOGs
Hey, man, how's it goin'? Alice was the coolest thing on the planet in '73. I remember the first time I ever saw the Killer lp. I was at my older cousins leafing through the selections in the big console stereo, and there was that big snake head. I picked it up. It felt, uh, evil. Asked my cousin if I could hear it and he replied that it was not appropriate at the moment with all the "adults" around. Talk about piqueing curiosity! The original band honed this sound to perfection. They knew their limitations, but boy could they play within them. And, creepy as "Dead Babies" is intended to be - it's still a tune about parental neglect and responsibility. A commentary on the self-absorbed society. A musical adaptaion of an abhorrent, intolerable adult trait that we're much more aware of now than we were in '72. Nice choice!!