When rock icon Billy Idol was working on his third album, Whiplash Smile, the follow-up to his double platinum smash album Rebel Yell, he was feeling sad about being separated from his girlfriend, Perri Lister. He had been writing different song lyrics along those lines, and he had also discovered a story that captured his imagination. Idol read about the creation of the Coral Castle during the making of that latter album in 1983, and it inspired the most original ballad he’d write in his career.
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A Tribute to Lost Love
Edward Leedskalnin was born in 1887 to a family of stonemasons, and had planned to marry Agnes Skuvst, who was nearly 10 years his junior. But she called off the wedding as she deemed him to be too old and poor for her, leaving him heartbroken. He embarked from Latvia to America around 1912 and moved around until eventually settling in Florida. Starting in 1923, he built a monument to Agnes—a castle and courtyard comprised of structures made entirely out of large coral blocks—and toiled on it up until his death in 1951.
What’s astonishing is how a 5-foot-tall, 100-pound man with a fourth-grade education who had once contracted tuberculosis, could build this, alone, from 1,100 tons of coral rock—particularly as he only used primitive equipment and machinery for this remarkable creation. It still baffles people today. Leedskalnin reportedly invited his beloved many times to visit the Coral Castle (originally called Rock Gate Park). But she never came to see his testament to their lost love and his undying devotion, which would be listed on the National Registry of Historic Places in 1984. He never married.
In his memoir, Dancing with Myself, Idol wrote: “When someone asked him why he had built it, he would simply say, ‘It’s for my Sweet Sixteen,’ referring to his lost bride-to-be who had so heartlessly left him. It was a coral memorial to her. ‘Sweet Sixteen’ is mine for Perri.”
An Inspiration in Coral
The song title indeed came from Leedskalnin’s nickname for Skuvst, although the devotional inspiration for the tune was Lister. Idol’s lyrics focus on the romantic—he has called it a “heartfelt lament”—rather than the obsessiveness that would drive someone to invest half their life in constructing something like the Coral Castle. Or the man’s Puritanical belief in pre-marital chastity. (In describing his version of the story on VH1 Storytellers, Idol thought Leedskalnin had been jilted at the altar at age 16 when he was actually around 25, but the song is ultimately about romantic loss—not young lust.)
Leedskalnin wrote a short tome called A Book in Every Home, which included a blank page next to each one of his in case a reader did not like what he wrote or had thoughts of their own to present. He was certainly a strange character, but he was also smart: he charged visitors 10 to 25 cents admission to see his creation. The Coral Castle, located in Homestead, Florida, mere miles from the Florida Keys, has been a perennial tourist attraction since its construction.
A Special Ballad
Although Idol generated a big buzz with his raucous anthem “Rebel Yell” in early 1984, he scored a bigger breakthrough with the ballad “Eyes Without a Face” which he co-wrote with his guitarist/collaborator Steve Stevens. The song hit No. 4 on the Billboard Top 100 singles chart. Part of the appeal of that song was the bristling guitar work from Stevens during the song’s middle break.
[RELATED: Behind the Song: Billy Idol, “Eyes Without a Face”]
The Idol-penned “Sweet Sixteen” took a different approach. It was a delicate acoustic shuffle with ethereal guitar work and soft crooning. There was no big solo, and Idol’s presence remained subdued throughout. It is a standout in his catalog for those qualities, and its haunting appeal.
In an interesting comparison, Idol told Grammy.com that “Rebel Yell” was also inspired by Lister. “It was about how great I thought she was, how much I was in love with her, and how great women are, how powerful they are,” he recalled. “It was a bit of a feminist anthem in a weird way.”
A Heartfelt Impact
Of the dozen songs Idol has charted in the Top 50, “Sweet Sixteen” was the fifth-highest (peaking at No. 20) after four Top 5 hits including the No. 1-charting live version of “Mony Mony.” Two videos were shot for the single that featured Idol singing and playing acoustic guitar—a black-and-white clip shot in a loft and a color version with footage of Idol at the Coral Castle.
The singer would also feature the song on his semi-acoustic set for VH1’s Storytellers in 2001, which was later released on CD. Interestingly, it’s one of his better charting songs, but not as well-known to the mainstream as his more rock-oriented hits.
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