In 2002 Billy Idol did an unplugged version of “White Wedding,” for VH1, but before performing he explained, “I thought about this incestuous kind of sick brother … who’s galavanting across the globe on some wild, who knows what he’s looking for, leading a completely unconventional life, leaving behind all your friends and just going and going and all those things started to play into the song.” By and large, Idol is addressing the debaucherous lifestyle that one takes on with becoming a rockstar, which is the most prominent theme woven into the lyrics. What better way to say goodbye to your old life than with a tongue-in-cheek desecration of a ceremony that tethers you to a new one?
For a white wedding, the symbolic gesture of the song has a rather dark core. “I supposed leaving home, and leaving England and suddenly faced with a new life again it did make me think there’s nothing fair in this world,” Idol went on in the same performance. “There’s nothing safe in this world. There’s nothing pure in this world.”
