“Dancing With Myself” by Generation X

Generation X first put out "Dancing With Myself" in Britain in 1980, and it later turned up on Kiss Me Deadly, their 1981 album. The idea came on the road: touring Japan in 1979, Billy Idol and bassist Tony James watched kids in a Tokyo disco dancing with their own reflections in the mirrored walls instead of with each other, and they built a song around that lonely, narcissistic thrill. Plenty of listeners have read something dirtier into it ever since.

They'd already demoed it at Olympic Studios in West London that same year, a take that stayed unreleased until 1998. The finished version, produced by Keith Forsey, piles on the guitarists, with Steve Jones, Danny Kustow, John McGeoch and Steve New all credited, and Terry Chimes on drums.

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