The lyrics describe a working-class "downtown man" attempting to woo a wealthy "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.

It was the second-best-selling single of 1983 in the United Kingdom behind only Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon", which Joel had knocked off the number-one position on November 1, 1983.

According to an interview with Howard Stern, Joel had originally titled the song "Uptown Girls", and it was conceived on an occasion when he was surrounded by Christie Brinkley, Whitney Houston, and his then-girlfriend Elle 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 famous supermodels of the 1980s.

[10] Cash Box said that "sounding uncannily like Frankie Valli, Joel plays out the city uptown-downtown caste system, longing for a seemingly unavailable 'white-bread' lovely.

Additional personnel Olivia Rodrigo mentioned the song and Joel in her hit single "Deja Vu", which became a top 3 U.S.

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 and James Wilby play the snobby uptown customers and Claudia Schiffer is in the Christie Brinkley role.