For the rocker who practically invented theatrical outrage, it must've seemed like a particularly bad case of deja vu.

In the wake of the tragedy at Columbine High School in Denver, Colo., in which a pair of students gunned down 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves, the media was once again full of stories that pointed an accusing finger at rock music, with special attention reserved for Marilyn Manson.

For Alice Cooper, those stories echoed the reaction that greeted his outrageous stage shows of the '70s, and even drew an eerie connection to Cooper himself. A Washington Post story this week included the "personal quote" from the American Online member profile of one of the killers, 18-year-old Eric Harris:

"Man has ruled this world as a stumbling, demented child king long enough/As his empire crumbles, my precious black widow shall rise as his most fitting successor." As any Alice Cooper fan can tell you, that cartoonish couplet is from the mid-'70s song "Black Widow", specifically the spoken-word intro read by actor Vincent Price.

"Okay, now this is something that was written for Vincent Price as almost like Edgar Allen Poe kind of gibberish that is literally about a spider," Cooper said Thursday during a phone interview from Phoenix, in response to a question about the Washington Post story.

"I said to myself, what does THIS have to do with anything?

"Ninety-nine per cent of people can understand that music and movies are a fantasy. There's one millionth of one percent that's gonna take it seriously and maybe even use it as an exucse to do something they wanna do. I don't think you can look at the music and what's going on and say, 'That's why'. Unless somebody's writing something and telling somebody to go do something, I don't see that happening.

"I never wrote anything with the intention of getting anybody to do anything, except to have a good time with it. I think there are points where artists have to be responsible for what they say. At the same time, geez, there's a lot more sickness going on than that. There's something really evil going on when somebody comes up with this kind of thing, and it goes way past music and way past movies.

A subdued Cooper added, "But it's almost too close to the thing to talk about it. I mean, there's still people being buried. I of course hate to see rock 'n' roll get the bad end of it because I think it's an easy target. Rock 'n' roll's a really easy target."