Songfacts®:

• Billy Joel married the supermodel Christie Brinkley less than two years after this song was released, but he wasn't even dating her when he started writing the song - he was actually dating another supermodel: Elle Macpherson. Asked about his relationship with Elle on The Howard Stern Show in 2010, Joel explained: "We dated on and off. We weren't like engaged or anything. We just kind of dated. She was 19."
  
  Joel went on to explain that he and Elle parted ways when she went off to Europe, which is around the time he started dating Brinkley. He reworked the lyrics, and by the time he finished the song, it was about Brinkley.
• On Australian TV in 2006, Billy Joel said: "The song was originally called 'Uptown Girls' not 'Uptown Girl.' I know its associated with Christie but when I started to write that song I had recently divorced prior to meeting her, all of the sudden I'm a rock star and divorced. All these women were going to go out with me."
  
  As he explained to Howard Stern, Joel was on vacation in the Caribbean when he was playing the piano, looked up, and saw Elle Macpherson, Christie Brinkley and Whitney Houston (who was more a model than a musician at that point) standing over his piano in wonderment watching him play. Joel thanked his creator for his good fortune, and began dating Elle. His first attempt at the song had the lyrics, "Uptown girls, I've been around the world." The music was more of a classical piece when it started.
• Joel is from Long Island, New York, and always considered himself a working-class, regular guy. This song reflects his surprise at his ability to attract such beautiful, glamorous women. In a 1987 interview with Q magazine, Joel said: "The fact that I can attract such a beautiful woman as Christie should give hope to every ugly guy in the world!"
• The whole album, especially this song, was a musical tribute to '60s pop music. Specifically, this one is done in the style of The Four Seasons, with Joel trying to sound like Frankie Valli. He had their song "Rag Doll" in mind both musically and lyrically; on that track Valli sings about a poor girl that he loves anyway. In fact, he loves her "just the way she is."
• Christie Brinkley is in the video, playing the Uptown Girl. Joel portrays a mechanic working on her car. The clip was directed by Jay Dubin, who also helmed Joel's videos for "Tell Her About It" and "The Longest Time."
  
  In 1985, Bruce Springsteen borrowed this idea for his "I'm On Fire" video, where his mechanic character has it bad for a woman who is clearly out of his league.
• Brinkley and Joel remained married for nine years, 1985-1994. She drew the cover art for his 1993 album River of Dreams.
  
  They separated due to scheduling conflicts and (according to Brinkley) Joel's drinking problem, but remained on good terms, faithfully co-parenting their daughter Alexa Ray, born in 1985 (she became a singer-songwriter like her dad). When Brinkley published her memoir in 2025, she titled it Uptown Girl and devoted plenty of pages to her time with Billy. "When I first heard him sing onstage, I found myself undeniably attracted to this physically hot and intellectually charismatic man," she wrote.
  
  He was her second husband; she got married two more times, but those also ended in divorce.
• This was Joel's only #1 single in the UK. It's also one of his best-selling in the US.
• In an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer decides to hang out with the band of hippies his mother was once part of in the 1960s, Homer breaks into singing a fragment of this song at one point. >>>

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• In 2001 the Irish boy band Westlife covered "Uptown Girl," topping the UK charts for a week. It was recorded as the official song for the 2001 BBC Comic Relief charity appeal. Screenwriter Richard Curtis, one of the founders of the Comic Relief campaign, knew supermodel Claudia Schiffer's agent and obtained her cooperation to be the Uptown Girl in the video, which mimicked Billy Joel's original that featured his model wife Christie Brinkley. In addition to Schiffer and Westife themselves, the video also featured the actors Tim McInnery, James Wilby, Ioan Gruffudd, Robert Bathurst and Crispin Bonham Carter as a chorus of city workers.
• The owner of the Rolls Royce in this video tried to pull a fast one on Jay Dubin's team. The director said in our interview: "The guy who owned the car was a little crazy. His radiator went out. His radiator had a leak in it and he was trying to shake us down. He said he needed a new radiator, and a Rolls Royce radiator was $2,000. So I remember my guy, Bruce, that handled that went up to him and said, 'Hey, no problem at all. I'll give you $2,000, but before I give you money, you've got to take the old radiator out of the car and give it to me.' And he goes, 'What do you mean?' Bruce said, 'I'm buying a $2,000 radiator for you, I'm taking the old one.' And suddenly the problem with the car went away."
• This song is a topic of discussion in the 2015 movie Trainwreck, where Bill Hader plays a surgeon who is dating Amy Schumer's character. When Hader operates, he listens to this song; the two have this exchange:
  
  Schumer: Why Billy Joel? Why "Uptown Girl"?
  
  Hader: I love that song.
  
  Schumer: That's probably the worst Billy Joel song. I'm pretty sure even Billy Joel hates that song.
  
  Hader: He shouldn't, it's great.
  
  Later in the film, Hader is stitching up Schumer's equally churlish father, played by Colin Quinn, who wonders why he is humming this song. They share Billy Joel stories:
  
  Quinn: That's the only thing that'll save you. I like Billy Joel. I saw him at Nassau Coliseum. Nylon Curtain tour.
  
  Hader: That's awesome. I saw him with Elton John at Shea Stadium. It was great.
  
  Quinn: Of course you did. Nothing better than down-to-earth blue-collar Billy Joel with Elton John, the Queen of England.
  
  At the end of the film, after a dance number that brings Hader and Schumer back together, another Billy Joel song plays: "A Matter Of Trust."
• In December 1985, Princess Diana surprised her husband, Prince Charles, by appearing on stage with Wayne Sleep of the Royal Ballet and doing a sassy choreographed dance to "Uptown Girl" at a charity gala. There is no video, but it's portrayed in the 2020 season 4 episode of the Netflix series The Crown, "Avalanche." Apparently, Prince Charles found it undignified, but the crowd loved it. Diana clearly loved the song; she was living the story with the roles reversed, married to a prince despite her humble origins.
  
  In The Crown, we see Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip discussing the dance. "Who is Billy Jo-el?" she asks.