Genuine American Girl

Album: Paranormal (2017)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is a bonus track on Alice Cooper's 27th album, Paranormal. The song is one of two historic mini-reunions with original Alice Cooper band members, guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith. This song was originally written by Smith.

    "When the original band broke up in 1975, there was no bad blood," explained Cooper. "There were no lawsuits — we had just burned out the creative process. We had gone to high school together and had recorded something like five platinum albums in a row. We were never out of sight of each other for 10 years. Everybody just went their own way. Neal, Dennis and I always stayed in touch. Mike disappeared for a while and Glen Buxton passed away in 1997, which was a big blow."

    "But last year Neal called me up and said, 'I have a couple of songs.' I said, 'Great. Bring 'em over.' Then he said Mike was stopping by, so I had them come to my house and we just worked on a few things for a week," he continued. "Then Dennis called up and said, 'I got a couple songs.' So, I thought, 'Hey, let's do this!' When you listen to record, it just fits right in."
  • The song is about a tough guy who is transgender and not afraid to let the world know about it. Cooper said: "It was gonna be 'I Want A Genuine American Girl', and I went, 'No, no, no. I Wanna Be A Genuine American Girl! It's really a tough song, so it's this guy going, 'I've gotta paint my nails, I've gotta do my hair.' [Laughs]"

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