How Billy Joel created the song "Uptown Girl" and who he dedicated it to
“Uptown Girl” is a song written and performed by American artist Billy Joel. The song tells the story of a simple guy from the working class who strives to win the heart of a wealthy girl from high society.
The History of the Creation and Meaning of the Song Uptown Girl by Billy Joel
The song “Uptown Girl”, as you can understand from its lyrics, is about love.
According to an interview, Joel originally titled the song "Uptown Girls." It was inspired by a moment he was in the company of Christie Brinkley, Whitney Houston, and his then-girlfriend Elle Macpherson.
In a 2006 interview on Australian television, Billy Joel explained:
“The song was originally called 'Uptown Girls', not 'Uptown Girl'. A lot of people associate it with Christy, but when I started writing it, I had just gotten divorced and hadn't met her yet. Suddenly I was a rock star and a lot of women wanted to date me.”
As Joel tells it, he was on vacation in the Caribbean when he was playing the piano. He looked up to see Elle Macpherson, Christie Brinkley, and Whitney Houston (who was then better known as a model than a singer) standing over his instrument, watching him play with interest. Joel took this as a sign of fate and began dating Elle.
According to numerous interviews with Joel, the song was originally about his relationship with Elle Macpherson, but it also eventually became a reflection of his future relationship with Christie Brinkley. Both women were among the most famous supermodels of the 1980s. Joel has mentioned that the song was inspired by the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
Billy noted that the song is connected to both women - Elle Macpherson and Christie Brinkley:
“There’s been a lot of stories going around since ‘Uptown Girl’ came out. People don’t get the whole story, they only see parts of it. When I started writing the song, I wasn’t even dating Christy. I was dating Elle.”
The song was originally written about his relationship with Elle Macpherson, but later came to refer to his future wife, Christie Brinkley. Brinkley commented:
“We all ended up together at the same time.”
In 2015, Brinkley said the song was not written about her or McPherson and came about before they met. She said:
“That’s what he told me then. He actually started writing that song because there was a woman with an incredible voice who was calling a lot of rock stars – he found out later. She was driving them crazy with her voice and what she said on the phone. She seemed like the epitome of elegance, on top of everything else. And when we met, he said, ‘Oh, it turns out I was writing a song about you without even knowing it.’”
Joel, a native of Long Island, New York, always considered himself a simple, working-class guy. The song reflects his surprise and joy at being able to attract the attention of such beautiful, glamorous women. In a 1987 interview, Joel said:
“The fact that I can win a woman as beautiful as Christie should give hope to every not-so-attractive guy in the world!”
Princess Diana surprised her then-husband Prince Charles with a dance to Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" at a select event at London's Royal Opera House in December 1985. To wow Charles, Diana teamed up with dancer Wayne Sleep on stage, performing a short ballet routine to Joel's famous track. Sleep shared:
“She valued the freedom that dance gave her. A few days later I received a letter from her. In it she said: ‘Now I understand what pleasure you experience when you perform on stage.’”
"Uptown Girl" spent five consecutive weeks at number three on the Billboard Hot 100. In the United Kingdom, the song topped the chart for five weeks, becoming Joel's only number one single in the country. It became the second best-selling single in the United Kingdom in 1983.
“Uptown Girl” was also one of the most successful singles of the 1980s in the UK, reaching number 19 in sales, with total sales exceeding 1.2 million copies.
Lyrics and translation of the song Billy Joel Uptown Girl
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