Uptown Girl

Uptown Girl
(An Innocent Man) (1983)

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The video for "Uptown Girl" was one of the best of the year and featured Christie Brinkley.
© 1983 Sony Music Entertainment. Watch more videos on BillyJoel.com, Sony MyPlay or Vevo's YouTube channel.

Download "Uptown Girl"

         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

   If it didn't become so popular, "Uptown Girl," might have been known simply as a novelty song, an homage to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and loving tribute to Christie Brinkley. As it is, however, the song became a huge hit and is often derided by Billy's critics as somehow being symbolic of what is "wrong" with Billy Joel, or his fans.

   The criticism is unfair. "Uptown Girl" is an intentional one-off. It was a deliberate attempt to mimic Frankie Valli's falsetto, and a clever counterpoint to Valli's "Rag Doll." It works both musically and lyrically. In contrast to "Rag Doll," in "Uptown Girl" it is the guy who is on the wrong side of the tracks, he is a "downtown man" trying to a woo an "uptown girl."

  Billy accounts himself well in the song. People who don't like "Uptown Girl" don't like Frankie Valli, but "Uptown Girl" is more like Frankie Valli than anything else that Billy wrote. In fact, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons sang the song at the Grammy Legend Award ceremony honoring Billy and others in 1991.

"And now she's looking for a downtown man . . . ."

Uptown girl
She's been living in her uptown world
I bet she never had a back street guy
I bet her mama 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 her presents from her uptown boys
She's got a choice

Oooh...

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 .... oh, oh, oh

Uptown girl
She's my uptown girl
Don't you know I'm in love
With an uptown girl

My uptown girl
Don't you know I'm in love
With an uptown girl
My uptown girl
Don't you know I'm in love
With an uptown girl
My uptown girl
she's an uptown girl

Although many fans assumed the song was about Christie Brinkley, Billy's original lyric and title was "uptown girls," plural, a reference to the many dates he went on following his divorce. At some point later, after he and Christie began dating the song evolved into "Uptown Girl." No matter, the sentiment and the joy in the song is clear.

The music video for "Uptown Girl" is a classic. It features both Billy and Christie Brinkley doing some simple dance steps. In the video, Billy is a grease monkey at a run-down garage when Ms. Brinkley's limousine pulls in for a fill-up. Billy and his mates begin serenading the uptown girl, and soon she gives in to his working class charms. It was one of the most popular videos of the time as that genre was exploding onto the scene, and no doubt helped propel the song to #3 on the US charts and #1 on the UK charts.

Eighteen years later in 2001 the UK group Westlife did a cover version of the song that went to #1 in the UK. The music video (below) also featured a supermodel, Claudia Schiffer. In the UK, the song was associated with Princess Diana as she danced to it at the Royal Opera House on Christmas as a surprise gift to Prince Charles. And Anthony Bourdain has expressed his disdain for this song, but is friends with Billy ("If I come over to your house for lunch and you’re playing “Uptown Girl” and boogying around the pool, I’m turning around and heading back to my house. But I like him personally a lot.") The song was also used in the Amy Schumer movie Trainwreck in 2015.

The song is no "Summer, Highland Falls" or "Vienna," but it works very well within the context of the album. And the music video remains a guilty pleasure even today.

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