Billy Idol recently came out with a book entitled: "Dancing With Myself".
I just had to get it and was very interested in reading it.
To back up a bit and share some background of me before I give my opinion on Billy's book...
I used to be a huge, avid reader as I was growing up. I went through so many paperbacks from historical romance to horror. I would just lose myself in the story and became part of it in my mind. It was wonderful!
As I got older, I began to have a busy life, kids, career...and then the fatal blow to my reading enjoyment was the internet. Here is where I made some of my own stories in my head come to life with real interactions with others and I left the stack of books that I had accumulated to collect dust.
I kept on collecting books there for a while and eventually, that stopped too.
A few times I would try to get back into reading but my eyesight seemed to be not as good and a few times it would hurt to try to read the small print. So I left it go as I was lost in the internet.
Over the years, I kept picking up books now and then, ones I would start to read, or I'd skim through them. I wanted to read them, just the hours and days kept slipping away from me and I never seemed to be able to finish them or keep up with them. Too much time would slip by and then I would forget where I was or even if I bookmarked the page, I wouldn't remember what all I had read before and would have to go back a few chapters until something sounded familiar.
Not good.
This past year, I came across a few books that were released that ignited my desire again to want to read. Namely, a lot of Pagan books by authors who I had met and I was intrigued and wanted to hear their voices in my head as I read. They are wonderful but I couldn't seem to keep the new routine going in reading no matter how interesting their books are. It wasn't the subject matter, but it was me and the addiction to the internet and playing a few games each night before I went to bed. Not to mention having a video projection going on in my room and I would have to stay up with it and wasn't getting proper sleep so I would be exhausted by the time I did get to sleep.
Billy Idol's book was no different than the other ones I had purchased. I was excited to read it and picked it up and read a couple chapters in between Halloween and Xmas video projections but I had to put it down again until the video projections/holidays were over.
I have a nice stack now there at my bedside, waiting for me and the one on top is Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself".
I am about a decade younger than Billy, but I grew up listening to some of the same music as he had, the old country music. My dad wouldn't let us have any rock and roll in the house if he could help it. He barely tolerated my older half sisters listening to Al Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, or Queen as it was and I am sure they listened to that mostly when he was away at work. I had nothing but country records in my room and it wasn't until I was on a school bus or got my own transistor radio that he won for us kids down the shore that I actually could listen to something other than the classic country that I loved, while away from the house. I heard Eagles and Beach Boys and all the greats back then in the 70s. No way would I have been able to listen to anything really heavier than that.
Once I got into junior and high school, I was exposed then to more rock and roll beyond Elvis. It was the Cars with their Candy-O album that really sent my head in a whirl. Friends were listening to Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Rolling Stones, and Molly Hatchet to name but a few. There was this big rivalry in fact between Pink Floyd and another band, I forget now who it was. We also listened to Journey and Styx. I heard of Billy Idol in passing, some of his songs had come out but the bus was always filled with the other stuff mostly. Yet I kept getting drawn to Billy's music.
I went into the AF and when I met the man who I would end up marrying at a young age of 19, he had invited me over to his room to 'see his VCR'. Yea, I know it sounds like come and see my tapestries! But I did and that's when I first saw MTV. WOW! Here was the music I had heard being played and performed by the artist themselves in these really cool videos! That's when I first saw Billy Idol. His "Eyes Without A Face" video captured my attention.
Each time it came on, I had to turn that volume right on up and sing with him, eyes glued to his every move, his every look, just mesmerized by his big blue eyes and his bleach blonde hair and his crazy outfits, the snarl and sneer and curling lip, heck even the fist pump. The women in the background smacking their behinds was hot! I loved it all! He was amazing! IS! I always felt he could have sang more ballads and love songs with how his wonderful voice sounded in this song. I was in love!
I loved his other videos too, "Flesh For Fantasy" struck a chord and of course he had so many great hits, "Mony Mony", "Dancing With Myself", "Rebel Yell", "White Wedding", and "Hot in the City". To this day I like to play his "Dead Next Door" for Halloween. His music was amazing! I knew my father would be just groaning away to know how much I loved Billy's music. But it was freeing and sexual and expressive and I loved it all. I didn't really know many other Billy fans. The songs were played on the radio a lot and they were catchy tunes that just got you hoppin and boppin and wanting to get out there and dance and be wild and crazy!
I got stuck on those songs and all the music from the 80s. I slipped back to the 70s and 60s and heck, I even began listening to 50s and 40s! I couldn't take much of the 90s though and that's why I just remained listening to what is now considered the classics. I didn't care for the techno music, nor much heavy metal. I always said that Billy Idol was as heavy metal as I got and yes, I knew he was really punk rock. That's as far as I went. So I ignored most of the music that came out in the early 2000s and even to this day, not much I really like. I saw myself becoming more like my parents in staying back listening to the good ol' oldies. I even went back and listened and enjoyed some old radio programs and big band and classical music and an old boyfriend even had me listening to a few opera pieces. So I never realized or knew that Billy went quiet for a while or that you just didn't hear much from him. I had my favorites, my classics from him and that's where I stayed, happy.
Insert internet again and years and years later, finally, after much prodding and bugging from friends, I got on Facebook. That opened up a huge world even more to me. I saw my daughter had liked Billy Idol's page and oh I was excited and quickly liked it too so I could follow and see what he was up to!
How many times over the years he would come to mind or I saw his videos or heard one of his many great songs that I'd sing along with!? I saw him talking of coming out with new music and I was like wow! Where have I been? But it seemed I began to follow him just in time. Not only was he coming out with a new cd, but he was coming out with this book, his first and all about his life! Oh wow! After listening to and watching his videos, this just had to be a really interesting book and one that I knew I would want and was anxious to read.
I wasn't sure what to expect as he said on Facebook that it was a pretty raw book that openly talked of his drug use and sexual adventures and hoped his fans would have his back. You have to love that kind of honesty. I guess I always kinda figured about the drug use for most rock and roll stars, heck most celebrities for that matter, sadly enough. But here he was, openly admitting to it all? Wow! Only Billy Idol would be that bold and in your face I thought. I know others have openly admitted and said, but it just felt like he just puts it all out there, like it or not.
So when I began to read his book, I have to say I was just gurgling with delight and surprise to read of his childhood and in growing up. Such parallels to my own in music alone as to what he and I both were exposed to. I wanted to reach out and tell him, HEY! I understand that and wow! we have that in common. Sometimes I think I lived a unique childhood in being brought up with that old music, but I realized I am one amongst the many. I did know some had too and most rejected that music but here, I was reading this man who I had 'Idolized' in some ways, that I saw on the opposite end of the music spectrum and yet he liked and grew up with several of the same artists. Not only that but he talks of many things that I knew of too where he grew up and the times he went to NYC. I was just enthralled.
Yet, as I mentioned, I had to put the book down with the video projections going on in my room. I tried to read a chapter a night until the holidays interrupted that. So finally, when the holidays ended, I was able to pick up his book again and this time, I was hooked and had to make myself put it down to get some sleep, but it was really hard as I wanted to read on and on. As I reached the end, I slowed again and I didn't want it to end now realizing I only had a few chapters left.
What is kinda funny and perhaps very naive, is that I always thought that when you were a star like on MTV or just in rock and roll with so many great hits, that you must have some good money. To read that was not the case so much with Billy as he was just becoming famous or known, yet his music was all over the place to me, how could he not? Perhaps the drugs, or the flying around, I imagine he must have had to pay for all of that too. Yet still, I would have thought he had more at the start of it back then in the early 80s at the very least. Later, he did it seems from some of the money he paid out for things, places he went and how successful the records became.
Reading of his girlfriend, Perri, just made me smile. I was so glad to read of him finding love. Although I had a feeling something was going to go wrong in their story, still I had hope that it would work out in the end.
I couldn't help as I was reading of his timeline and where he was or what he was doing in any given year, to compare to my own life and wonder where I was at, at that moment. While he had returned to NYC, I was there in PA or just upstate NY perhaps camping or down the shore in Jersey. How close and such a world away in comparison.
Reading of his love for his kids just really made me smile. More of his songs come to mind as well that came after "Rebel Yell", like "Cradle of Love" and "Catch My Fall". How so little we realize as an audience how some of our favorite artists are hurting inside. What struggles they are going thru whether it is drug addiction with themselves or managers or just falling into temptation to things that they know is wrong or bad and yet, whatever it was caused them to not be able to help themselves.
There is so much in the world that we can find and experience that are natural highs. Ones that won't destroy our bodies, mind or spirit. It's not an easy road tho', that's for sure. But I believe that if we can do those things, if we can find them, that we can have an epiphany and a great realization comes over us and well, we just have a WOW moment and realize you don't need the drugs and booze.
Billy is quite candid tho' in detailing of his life, his addictions and adventures.
One part of his book that kinda threw me a little as I was reading was that he talks of his accident in the beginning and then goes back to the start when he was very young and then when you get to that part of his life with the accident, the chapter kind of jumped to it and I kept flipping the page to see if I missed something and then remembered the beginning where he talks of it and how it happened. I would have preferred he went over it again when you reached that point in the book.
To be critical of the book in that way and also there are a few typos or things that the editors didn't catch when printing, maybe misprint. I only catch that sort of nitnoid stuff because I am a writer and loved English class.
Finishing the book, I have to say that I am left with the feeling about Billy, well actually a single word. Courage. He's faced some pretty hard and harsh things in life. Held fast to his belief in his music and never afraid to try something new, even if some of those new things harmed him. I think a lot in life that is out there will do that to you, knock you down and pick you up, it's just a matter of us choosing in some degrees and helping ourselves to pick ourselves back up too.
Of course the drugs were the saddest part for me along with the love lost. The drugs really harmed him more than even physically, causing such damage to so many relationships. But the brightest spots of course are his children now grown! Wow! I could hear the pride in his words and feel his heart swell in talking of them. I still will hope for he and Perri. Maybe one day. I like how he thanks his band members throughout the book at times or managers, friends and there in the end to hear of his family and I was feeling tears fall down my cheeks as he talked of his parents, his dad especially.
I don't know a lot about music, how to write it, lyrics--writing I know, but not the music and yet reading of how he wrote it and everything he has done and gone thru that he shares of, really opens up my eyes to such a whole other world.
This book was well written and it was like you were sitting down next to him and listening to him tell the tale, just chatting with you. I really enjoyed reading of the life of William Broad, Billy Idol. After listening to his music and then reading his book, I understand a whole lot more of the music and now, I want to go and get the cds of his other albums that I missed out on. And me missing out on them, wasn't so much indicative of Billy, but more of my own life and where I was at, at the time. I feel like I must have been sleeping. I look forward to hearing his other cds and I feel like I will be able to appreciate his music in a whole other way than I had before.
Thank you Billy! You are a true wonder and I wish you love, peace, and a long healthy life.
