"Uptown Girl" is a song written and performed by American musicianBilly Joel from his ninth studio album,An Innocent Man (1983), released in September 1983 as the album's second single. The lyrics describe aworking-class "downtown man" attempting to woo awealthy "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),[6] whereas some 7" single versions featured "Careless Talk" as a B-side.[7]
"Uptown Girl" peaked at number three on theBillboard Hot 100 for five consecutive weeks from November 12 to December 10, 1983.[8] 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 onlyCulture Club's "Karma Chameleon", which Joel had knocked off the number-one position on November 1, 1983. The song was the19th-best-selling single of the 1980s in the United Kingdom, selling 975,000 copies. It has sold over 1.8 million copies as of 2025.
According to an interview withHoward Stern, Joel had originally titled the song "Uptown Girls", and it was conceived on an occasion when he was surrounded byChristie Brinkley,Whitney Houston, and his then-girlfriendElle 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 famoussupermodels of the 1980s.[9] Joel said that the song was inspired by the music ofFrankie Valli and the Four Seasons.[10]
Christie Brinkley, Joel's future wife, appears as the main character of the video
Cash Box said that "sounding uncannily likeFrankie Valli, Joel plays out the city uptown-downtown caste system, longing for a seemingly unavailable 'white-bread' lovely."[11]Four Seasons bassistJoe Long praised the record and considered it vindication for him, as he had been forced out of the band during its1970s 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.[12]
The video depicts Joel and his backup singers working as auto mechanics. Brinkley arrives in a chauffeuredRolls-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.
In 1985, 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."[13]
Olivia Rodrigo mentioned the song and Joel in her hit single "Deja Vu", which became a top 3 U.S. hit.[54] Rodrigo made a surprise appearance at Joel'sMadison Square Garden performance on August 24, 2022, singing "Deja Vu" with Joel on piano and "Uptown Girl" as a duet with Joel.[55][56]
Irishboy bandWestlife covered the song for their third studio album,World of Our Own. It was released on March 5, 2001, as the2001Comic Relief charity single. The song was also released as the fifth single for the European Special Edition and Asian Deluxe Edition Bonus Disc of the group's second album,Coast to Coast (2000). The Westlife version is slightly shorter than Joel's version because one of the verses was not repeated. The music video was a parody of Joel's, with the members of Westlife playing workers in a burger bar.Robert Bathurst,Crispin Bonham-Carter,Ioan Gruffudd,Tim McInnerny andJames Wilby play the snobby uptown customers andClaudia Schiffer is in the Christie Brinkley role.
"Uptown Girl" reached number one in Ireland, Mexico and the United Kingdom. It became the best-selling single of 2001 and the tenth-best-selling single of all time in Ireland. In the United Kingdom, it was thesixth-best-selling single of 2001 and the24th-best-selling single of the decade in the UK charts, with sales of 756,215 copies. It became the band's best-selling single (paid-for and combined sales categories) in the UK and also achieved the highest first week sales (292,318 copies) of any of their singles. It has since been certified platinum by theBritish Phonographic Industry for shipments of 600,000 copies.[58] By March 2017, the song had sold almost 800,000 copies in the country from physical and digital copies which make up 81% of the total units.[59] By January 2019, it had 920,000 total sales. As of 30 November 2021, it has 1.1 million total sales with 67% of it or 748,000 were physical sales.[59] This makes the single part of thelist of million-selling singles in the United Kingdom and the first one for the group.
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
^abBillboard Staff (October 19, 2023)."The 500 Best Pop Songs: Staff List".Billboard. RetrievedFebruary 10, 2024.1960s doo-wop meets 1980s pop-rock in an endlessly-singable ragtag love story...
^Pennanen, Timo (2006).Sisältää hitin – levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava. p. 263.ISBN978-951-1-21053-5.
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