The cover of a song by Tommy James & The Shondells would be Billy Idol’s only number one hit in the United States.  As hard as it may be to believe, other Idol songs like White Wedding, Rebel Yell, and Dancing With Myself failed to even crack the top 30.  Interestingly enough, when Mony Mony hit number one, the song that it replaced was another song that was originally recorded by Tommy James, Tiffany’s cover of I Think We’re Alone Now. 

A good deal of the success of Billy Idol’s Mony Mony can probably be linked back to this music video, which features Billy Idol at his most energetic.  During performances of Mony Mony, audience members would regularly shout, “Hey Motherfucker … Get Laid!  Get fucked!” in between the lines.  How this became a tradition is not known but it did lead to this otherwise innocuous song getting banned from several high school dances.

This video was directed by Larry Jordan, who has also done videos for Shania Twain and Mariah Carey.

Enjoy!