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White Wedding (song)

"White Wedding"
Billy Idol - White Wedding 1982 single picture cover.jpg
Single by Billy Idol
from the album Billy Idol
A-side "White Wedding (Part 1)"
B-side "White Wedding (Part 2)" (12-inch only)
Released 23 October 1982
Format Vinyl (7" and 12")
Recorded 1981
Genre Rock, new wave
Length 4:11 (album version)
3:30 (7")
8:19 (12")
Label Chrysalis
Writer(s) Billy Idol
Producer(s) Keith Forsey
Billy Idol singles chronology
"Hot in the City"
(1982)
"White Wedding"
(1982)
"Rebel Yell"
(1983)
Audio sample
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"White Wedding" is a song by Billy Idol that appeared on his album Billy Idol (1982). It is often considered one of his most recognisable songs, although other Idol songs charted higher. It reached No. 36 on the Billboard Hot 100 on its original release, and reached No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart upon its re-release there in 1985, when it was reissued to promote the Vital Idol remix album.

7″: Chrysalis - CHS 2656 (UK)

12″: Chrysalis - CHS 12 2656 (UK)

12″: Chrysalis - 4V9 42685 (US)

7″: Chrysalis - IDOL 5 (UK)

12″: Chrysalis - IDOLX 5 (UK)

The music video, featuring Idol attending a gothic wedding, is one of his best-known. The bride is played by Perri Lister, Idol's real-life girlfriend at the time. She is also one of the three dancers clad in black leather, who slap their buttocks in time with the clap track in the song as they shimmy downwards near the end. "That's the kind of thing they love in England", says Idol.

In one scene from the video, Idol forces the barbed-wire wedding ring onto the bride's finger and cuts her knuckle. Lister insisted that her knuckle actually be cut in order for the scene to appear more realistic. MTV initially removed this scene from the video. Also controversial were the apparent Nazi salutes made by the crowd toward the couple. Director David Mallet says he was merely "playing with the power of crowd imagery" when he had the extras reach toward the bride and did not realize how it looked until later.

The MTV-edited version of the video is included on the DVD portion of The Very Best of Billy Idol: Idolize Yourself CD/DVD package.

The song has been covered by many bands including the Young Werewolves, Murderdolls, Umbra et imago, Deathstars, Doro, Rowland S. Howard, Sentenced, Aiden and the band Queens of the Stone Age. Serbian punk rock band KBO! recorded a version on their 2001 cover album (Ne) Menjajte Stanicu (which translates as (Do Not) Change the Station). Post-hardcore band Aiden recorded a version of "White Wedding" for UK rock magazine Kerrang!'s cover CD High Voltage!: A Brief History of Rock and on their EP Rain in Hell. Part of it is included in Franz Ferdinand's cover of Gwen Stefani's "What You Waiting For?". Also, the gothic rock/steampunk band Abney Park recorded a cover on their 2005 album Taxidermy. The Swedish rock singer Jay Smith recorded a version, included on his first album, self-titled Jay Smith. Metal band Powderburn recorded a cover as part of a medley with "Rebel Yell" for their Come and Take It EP. Herman's Hermits did a version released on the album When Pigs Fly: Songs You Never Thought You'd Hear.


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