Uptown Girl

"Uptown Girl" is a song written and performed by American musician Billy Joel. The lyrics describe a working-class "downtown man" attempting to woo a wealthy "uptown girl". It was released on September 29, 1983, on his ninth studio album, An Innocent Man (1983). 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 1.06 million copies as of 2017. Inspiration 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. Reception 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."