South Africa's Civil Twilight has drilled down into the heartbreaking emotional center of Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself." Check out their lonesome cover, to be released as a bonus track on their forthcoming acoustic version of Story of an Immigrant, via the embed above.

"Dancing with Myself" was actually a stand-out cut from Idol's early band Generation X, and found a home on their final album, 1981's Kiss Me Deadly. Idol later remixed the original take featuring co-writer Tony James on bass, and released "Dancing With Myself" as a solo song. It barely charted, despite the contemporary Top 40 success of 1983's "Hot in the City" and "White Wedding," but nevertheless became a staple on radio and in Idol's concerts ever since.

“I was sitting down with a friend of mine listening to ["Dancing With Myself"] one day,” frontman Steven McKellar tells Consequence of Sound. “He read me the lyrics while the song was playing and I just thought they were so beautiful. They struck me in a way that they never had before. I thought, ‘This song would make such a beautiful ballad.’ So, we decided to record it that way, really sparse and sensitive.”

McKellar and company released the full-band version of Story of an Immigrant last summer, with an eye toward releasing stripping-down versions of the songs later on. "It’s really great to break our songs into the acoustic version," he told Diffuser last year. "For me personally, it’s the best way to see if we have a song or not. ... So, we actually did an acoustic version of all the songs on the record and then recorded them."

Civil Twilight have announced tour dates into August; their new acoustic project is due July 15.

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