"He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" | ||||
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Single cover
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Single by Alice Cooper | ||||
from the album Constrictor | ||||
Released | October 1986 | |||
Recorded | 1986 | |||
Genre | AOR, pop rock | |||
Length | 3:49 | |||
Label | MCA Records | |||
Writer(s) | Alice Cooper, Kane Roberts, Tom Kelly | |||
Producer(s) | Alice Cooper | |||
Alice Cooper singles chronology | ||||
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"He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" is a song by American shock rock musician Alice Cooper. It was released as the lead single from his 1986 album Constrictor, and the theme song of Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, a slasher film and sixth part of the Friday the 13th film series released in the same year. The song is heard various times throughout the film and in the end credits. Two other songs, "Teenage Frankenstein" (also from Constrictor) and "Hard Rock Summer" (which remained commercially unreleased until 1999) are also featured in the film.
The song features the famous "ki-ki-ki ma-ma-ma" (admittedly in its popular misheard version, "ch-ch-ch, ha-ha-ha") sound effect, a trademark of the Friday the 13th series.
"He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" was a minor chart success, popular among fans of Cooper's later work and enthusiasts of slasher films. It has been called "strangely new wave-ish" and said to "perfectly enscapulate the Friday the 13th films and the era in which they came to prominence."
The 7" single featured a "live" version of "Billion Dollar Babies" as its B-Side. The 12" single featured "Billion Dollar Babies (Recorded Live)" as well as a haunting "live" version of "I'm Eighteen". Both versions were in fact originally recorded in the studio for the Alice Cooper a Paris TV special in 1982 during the Special Forces era, which were remixed in 1986 with crowd noise to resemble "live" recordings.
A demo version of the song, with a slightly rockier and much more upbeat feel, as well as the final release version, were featured in the four-disc retrospective boxed set The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper, which chronicles Cooper's career. The song was also available on a compilation album of songs from his two late-1980s MCA albums, Constrictor and Raise Your Fist and Yell, entitled Prince of Darkness.