Billy Joel – Uptown Girl

About The Song

“Uptown Girl” is a song written and performed by American musician Billy Joel from his ninth studio album An Innocent Man (1983), released in September 1983 as the album’s second single. The lyrics describe a working-class “downtown man” attempting to woo a wealthy “uptown girl”. The 12″ EP has the tracks “My Life”, “Just the Way You Are” and “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me” (catalogue number TA3775), whereas some 7″ single versions featured “Careless Talk” as a B-side.

“Uptown Girl” peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 for five consecutive weeks from November 12 to December 10, 1983. It also reached number one in the United Kingdom for five weeks, his only number-one hit in the country. It was the second-best-selling single of 1983 in the United Kingdom behind only Culture Club’s “Karma Chameleon”, which Joel had knocked off the number-one position on November 1, 1983. The song was the 19th-best-selling single of the 1980s in the United Kingdom, selling 975,000 copies. It has sold over 1.2 million copies as of 2023.

According to an interview with Howard Stern, Joel had originally titled the song “Uptown Girls”, and it was conceived on an occasion when he was surrounded by Christie Brinkley, Whitney Houston, and his then-girlfriend Elle Macpherson. According to numerous interviews with Joel, the song was initially written about his relationship with Macpherson, but it ended up also becoming about his soon-to-be wife, Brinkley, both women being two of the most famous supermodels of the 1980s. Joel said that the song was inspired by the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

Cash Box said that “sounding uncannily like Frankie Valli, Joel plays out the city uptown-downtown caste system, longing for a seemingly unavailable ‘white-bread’ lovely.” Four Seasons bassist Joe Long praised the record and considered it vindication for him, as he had been forced out of the band during its 1970s renaissance when it moved away from the classic sound; Long argued that the success of “Uptown Girl” had shown the Four Seasons had not needed to make those kinds of changes.

The video depicts Joel and his backup singers working as auto mechanics. Brinkley arrives in a chauffeured Rolls-Royce as Joel and the mechanics dance with her. A poster of Brinkley can be seen in the garage as well as on a billboard above the garage advertising “Uptown Cosmetics”. At the end of the video Joel and Brinkley ride off on a motorcycle. Before the song starts, footage from the music video “Tell Her About It” is seen playing on a Portable TV.

Joel said, “”Uptown Girl” I wasn’t too crazy about, because they wanted me to dance. I sort of said, OK, you know, I’ll give it a try. We shot it on the two hottest days of the year. We were down on the Bowery, and all these bums kept butting in with ‘A-a-ay Cri-i-ist-a-ay!'”

Video

Lyrics

Uptown girl
She’s been living in her uptown world
I bet she’s never had a backstreet guy
I bet her mamma never told her why
I’m gonna try for an

Uptown girl
She’s been living in her white-bread world
As long as anyone with hot blood can
And now, she’s looking for a downtown man
That’s what I am

And when she knows what she wants from her time
And when she wakes up and makes up her mind

She’ll see I’m not so tough
Just because I’m in love with an

Uptown girl
You know I’ve seen her in her uptown world
She’s getting tired of her high-class toys
And all the presents from her uptown boys
She’s got a choice

Uptown girl
You know I can’t afford to buy her pearls
But maybe, someday, when my ship comes in
She’ll understand what kind of guy I’ve been
And then I’ll win

And when she’s walking, she’s looking so fine
And when she’s talking, she’ll say that she’s mine

She’ll say I’m not so tough
Just because I’m in love with an

Uptown girl
She’s been living in her white-bread world
As long as anyone with hot blood can
And now, she’s looking for a downtown man
That’s what I am

Uptown girl, she’s my uptown girl
You know I’m in love with an uptown girl, my uptown girl
You know I’m in love with an uptown girl, my uptown girl
You know I’m in love with an uptown girl, my uptown girl