Songoftheday 3/24/13 - I bet she never had a backstreet guy, I bet her mother never told her why...

Billy Joel - "Uptown Girl"
from the album An Innocent Man (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (five weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 16

Today's Song of the Day is by the "Piano Man", Billy Joel, who kicked off his retro-sounding landmark album An Innocent Man in the fall of 1983 with the US #1 hit "Tell Her About It". That single had barely peaked before people were slamming radio stations with requests for what would be the next single, "Uptown Girl". Originally written for then-girlfriend Elle McPherson, then inspired obviously by the next supermodel who would become Billy's wife, Christie Brinkley, the record seemed ripped right out of the Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons' catalog. With Christie in the video as a rich lady at Joel's car shop, MTV was all over this one.

"Uptown Girl" was his biggest hit in Britain, topping the chart for five weeks, the same amount of time it spent at #3 in America. It also topped the pop charts in Australia and Ireland, and went to #2 on the adult-contemporary chart (while stalling at #22 on the rock radio list). And the video still remains one of the best of the 80s (no small feat).

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Here's Billy live in London in 1984 with "Uptown Girl"...

Punk rockers Me First and the Gimme Gimmes covered the song back in the 90s...

But by far the biggest version aside from Joel's was from Irish boyband Westlife, who released the single as a charity record for Comic Relief, and became their biggest seller, topping the British charts in 2001...

Singer, actor, and Captain Jack from Torchwood, John Barrowman covered the single in 2008..

And lastly, in 2011 Glee covered the song (done by the 'Warblers') for the episode "The First Time" (one of the bittersweet ones for me) and reached #68 on Billboard's Hot 100....

Up tomorrow: Aussie's get bipolar.