The Gen X Song That Became Billy Idol’s Solo Debut, “Dancing with Myself”

Opening the third Gen X (Generation X) album, Kiss Me Deadly, also the band’s final release before breaking up, “Dancing with Myself” pranced more into pop for the punk rockers and went to No. 62 on the UK Singles Chart.

Written by Billy Idol and bassist Tony James, the song was originally inspired by a 1979 trip to Japan, while Gen X were on tour when the two found themselves captivated by the sight of Japanese clubgoers dancing with their reflections in a mirror instead of other people at a Tokyo discotheque.

“We were in Tokyo watching some kind of a Saturday night dance disco where they were all dressed like John Travolta, but they weren’t dancing with each other, they were dancing with their own reflections,” said Idol explaining the song in 2023 on a social media video. “I said to Tony James, ‘They’re dancing with myself.’ Tony said ‘Dancing with Myself, that could be a good title.’”

The Meaning

Dancers are on the floors of Tokyo moving to their own reflections. They’re waiting for their other half, a love vibration. In the meantime, they’ll keep dancing with themselves. The song also plays as a metaphor for embracing one’s independence, and waiting until the right people come along.

On the floors of Tokyo
Or down in London town to go, go
With a record selection and a mirror’s reflection
I’m dancing with myself

When there’s no one else in sight
In the crowded lonely night
Well, I wait so long for my love vibration
And I’m dancing with myself

Dancing with myself (ah, oh, oh-oh)
Dancing with myself (ah, oh, oh-oh)
When there’s nothing to lose and there’s nothing to prove (ah, oh, oh-oh)
Well, I’m dancing with myself, ah, oh, oh-oh

Shortly after their Tokyo encounter, the two returned back to London and wrote the song. “I remember I came back, I was terribly hung over and I got to the studio earlier one day and I started to play around on my guitar,” said Idol, “and by the time Tony got there I said ‘Tony, I’ve got a bit of an idea for the tune,’ and we wrote it right then.”

Idol continues “It really was about you dancing in the night thinking ‘Well, until I have someone else to dance to, I’m going to dance to my own reflection.”

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After the breakup of Gen X in 1981, Idol remixed the song and released it as his solo debut on his 1981 EP Don’t Stop.

“With ‘Dancing With Myself’ I was trying to put back in punk energy, but streamline the music at the same time and make it great to dance to and slightly more sexual—some of the things that punk precluded because it was a sort of gang kind of music,” said Idol in 2014. “I wanted to put a sexual feeling into it, and that’s when I started doing with songs like ‘Dancing With Myself.’”

“Dancing With Myself” peaked at No. 27 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart and remains an Idol classic.

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images