Dancing With Myself

i read this on a few sites as well....

In an interview, Idol said the song was about the club scene in Japan. They have mirrors set up on the walls, and kids go in and dance with their mirror image instead of with another human being; it's about isolation and dehumanization.

If you watch VH1 storytellers he says he wrote this song when he was in japan watching girls dance...because they never danced with a partner they were just dancing with themselfs like strippers do.

The song is not about masturbation. He wrote this after his visit in a club in Japan. He was curious about a fad there, which actually spread through much of Japan in the era. People did not dance with other people, instead the dance floord were covered with large mirrors and you were supposed to dance in front of them. Japan has such stupid fads...it was once a fad for teenagers to jump into volcanoes...

Its both about masturbation and dancing, double meaning. Some lines fit more with dancing than masturbation and some fit more with masturbation than with dancing.

Billy Idol has been very clear about this not being about masturbation. Think about it, he had this rebel punk image, if he had written it about masturbation he probably would have named the song "This Song Is About Masturbation". Or "Wanking With Myself", because the term 'wanking' wasn't very well known in the US. (The lyrics to David Bowie's 'Time' included the word 'wanking', and it sailed right by US censors.)

But Idol has both spoken and written about what the lyrics really mean. In clubs in Japan he would try to mingle with girls, but they were all dancing alone - with their own reflections - right up against the mirrored walls, and didn't want to meet people or dance with them. By the time this song was re-released in the US this trend had made it to the west coast as well. (It was the damnedest thing... teen boys usually lean against the walls, and eventually the girls get tired of this and dance with each other; eventually the boys decide there is enough protective camouflage and make their way out to the floor. Suddenly this trend inverted, the dance floors were empty and the walls were lined with girls facing the mirrors.) So anybody who went to clubs on the west coast in the early 80s knew exactly what the song was about, because we'd all seen the same thing. And we literally eventually decided screw it, I'll dance by myself. Which was considered a weird thing in the clubs at the time, where people had been dancing together as couples to disco just two years before.

I find it interesting how people decide they hear a certain meaning in a song and then declare that the song IS about that thing, without taking into account their own perceptual biases. In the early 80s nobody on either coast of the US thought this song was about masturbation, but the decent God-fearing people in states like Utah and Georgia were certain that it was. Today we have bands writing about sex all the time, so people assume this was also true 35 years ago. It wasn't.

Yes, its about masturbation. Because back in the day when he wrote this song, people were not aloud to sing about sex and what not, so its more of a code for "playing with myself" or however you want to put it

i would have never guessed this song would be about pleasuring ones self... personaly i found it to be about self liberation..being happy with just yourself and not needing anyone else for anything

"If I had a chance, I'd ask the world to dance And I'll be dancing with myself"

even if he had the chance for another to accompany him, he'd still choose being by himself

he wants the world to know hes there..but he also wants them to know all he needs is himself

"Well there's nothing to lose And there's nothing to prove And I'm dancing with myself "

maybe refering to not having to prove anything to anyone or impress anyone when he's by himself..theres no troubles or conflict ..simply the bliss of your own company

you'll get this completely..or you won't get it at all basically im trying to say he's like ha ha, i don't need you people, i have myself...and smirks because he understands why and what his reasons are

anyway..thats what i personally think the song means..atleast to me..i dont care to much what anyone else thinks..just thought i'd share though

I think it's about whatever you want it to be. For me, it's about just going up there and dancing your socks off (or whatever othere embarrassing thing it is you have to do) and not giving a shit what anyone else thinks about you!!! I realise that it probably has a double meaning relation to "pleasuring oneself" too but that's part of the beauty of the song is that it's not always bluntly clear... music would be boring if everyone said exactly what they meant! So if he had that in mind when he wrote it, then cool, but that's not how I choose to view it...

If you watch I love the 80's and stuff everyone will say it's about masturbation- but it's not. Billy himself said it's about the clubs in Japan..

This song isn't about masturbation. I know it sounds that way, but it's not. It is, quite literally, about dancing with yourself.

He was in a Japanese club watching the kids dance by themselves. It was a style called Pogo, i think. I'm not sure what the style was.

There is no dirty meaning. There is no deeper meaning. It's about exactly what it says. Dancing with yourself. By yourself.