What is Billy Idol's White Wedding all about?

Tim_R.Mortiss · January 24, 2016, 10:31pm

It’s about a wedding for Academy Award nominees.

Abner_Ravenwood · January 25, 2016, 5:11am

Billy Boy

garygnu · January 25, 2016, 5:53am

Interesting thread.

I thought it was about a guy showing up at his ex girlfriend’s wedding and trying to pick up her younger sister.

Malthus · January 25, 2016, 3:39pm

Valgard:

OK, just flipped open Billy Idol’s autobiography (“Dancing With Myself”) and here’s what he says about the song:

“I stared at the blank piece of scrap paper in front of me. Taking the pen sitting alongside it in hand, I wrote white wedding at the top. What made me think of that? Well, my sister had recently gone to the altar pregnant. And while that fact was perfectly all right with everyone, seeing as how she loved the guy, I started thinking about how, in the more recent past, this would have been called a “shotgun wedding.” I started to imagine at alternative reality, one in which I was pissed off at this violation of my sister and I arrive at the wedding hell-bent on revenge.” (Dancing With Myself, page 162)

So the song originated with him thinking about his sister’s wedding which evidently didn’t have any special drama associated with it however he used that as a jumping-off point to write a darker song. Some of the other lyrics “create an uneasy feel” and some of them he says are related to his solo career after his previous band (Gen X) broke up.

So there you go.

Heh I wonder what his sister thought about all this. "Thanks Bro, for immortalizing my wedding in song … ".