Generation X,
Billy Idol's pre-solo career punk band, were the first to perform the song. It was subsequently used by
Billy as a
solo track, and covered to
death by a
cornucopia of lame bands such as
Blink 182,
Green Day,
Third Eye Blind, and terrible
techno group
The Boomtang Boys. It is much easier to find
mpeg audio layer III versions of all these
lame-ass covers than it is to find Generation X's or even Billy Idol's version. One would think that an
mp3 labeled only as "Dancing With Myself.mp3" would be Billy Idol's...but noooooooooo. Stupid techno
kids. I also found what is purportedly a version of the song done by
Kids Incorporated,
the Disney channel show about a kiddie pop group whose biggest problems were
dancing and
sibling rivalries that came on right after the
Mickey Mouse Club show as I recall...but I'm far too
frightened to
download it. I mean...what if it really IS them? Do I want to hear a bunch of kids singing about
masturbation? Granted, the song could conceivably have a clean interpretation, dancing with oneself non-euphemistically is a lot of fun, and it's the only way
fat guys like me can dance at all without being hopelessly
embarrassed ("There's nothing to lose/And there's nothing to
prove.") But the
line "Well, I wait so long for my love
vibration" kind of thrusts it into the
realm of the
dirty.
And I think the line, at least in the Generation X and Billy Idol versions, is "If I had a chance I'd ask the world to dance and not be dancing with myself"...yeah, that's dirty and horny. Billy's gonna sweat.
The Generation X version is number 256 on CFNY's Top 1002 New Rock Songs of all-time...though it deserves better.