Not entirely surprised to see this song and BJ in general be so polarizing in the comments. « CULTURE CLUB – “Karma Chameleon” THE FLYING PICKETS – “Only You” » Comments « 1 2 3 All Those endless runs of “oh-oh-whoas” are the main reason to listen to the song, and they’re a tip off as to where it’s really coming from, in spirit if not in music: not the street heat of Frankie Valli but the lusty lads-together innocence of the Beach Boys. It isn’t a record about bedding an uptown girl or wanting to bed an uptown girl, it’s a record about remembering wanting to bed an uptown girl, and boasting to your blue-collar buds that that’s what you were gonna do, and wanting to have blue-collar buds to boast to! The video makes this explicit with Christine Brinkley as pin-up come to life, but it’s in the song too, in the husky, hearty interplay of those cascading backing vox, whose prominence makes it obvious that the guys – not the girl – are the chief audience for Joel’s talk. Of course Billy Joel is smart enough to realise this, and “Uptown Girl” works because it’s history written by the winners. There’s nothing at stake in “Uptown Girl” – how could there be? Rock and roll moved uptown long ago. The street music – doo-wop and rock’n’roll – that “Uptown Girl” draws energy from was able to speak so powerfully to sexual and social codes partly because the act of addressing those codes head-on was itself a breach of them. 2 flowed from her fingertips, much to the surprise of the room.Īfter the performance, the broadcaster at the time recalled, “She almost ran for cover, clearly embarrassed at her musical debut.Billy Joel pays tribute to the music of his childhood, and so inevitably there’s something childish about “Uptown Girl”: its instant singability makes it sound like a Grease outtake, except there was more sex and chemistry in Grease’s flirtatious goofery. After some persuasion, the princess walked over to the keys and a segment from Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. Moments later, Diana was asked if she might tickle the ivories. Charles bumped into an old friend who knew he once played the cello, and he agreed to play a few notes. It happened during a royal tour to Australia, when Charles and Diana were visiting a school. Read more: Moving moment ballerina with Alzheimer’s remembers Swan Lake >Įmma Corrin and Jay Webb reenact Diana and Sleep’s dance scene.ĭiana was an accomplished pianist, as demonstrated by the time (watch below) she shocked a room of young musicians by rattling off a passage of Rachmaninov. ”Īfter marrying Charles, Diana became a patron of the English National Ballet, supporting the company both as a private dancer and through fundraising, and attending a number of performances. “She had been taking dance classes somewhere off the Talgarth Road. “She was very good and very musical,” Sleep says, recalling how Diana prepared for her on-stage appearance in 1985. As a child, she took ballet and tap lessons. The Crown: Charles' reaction to Diana's surprise duet.Īs Sleep attested to, ballet was one of Diana’s great loves. His Royal Highness has said he will not be watching the show. It is also unclear whether the performance was actually for Charles’s birthday, being a month earlier in real life.įriends of HRH The Prince of Wales have reportedly criticised the new season for “dragging his name through the mud”. The previous year, they had actually performed a ‘bit’ together. But Sleep told her that he believed Charles was offended at having been left out. His reaction was interpreted, Brown says, as “frigid disapproval of Diana’s lapse in royal etiquette”. Afterwards, he becomes cold, asking his wife “What were you thinking?” and calling the surprise a “grotesque, mortifying display”.Īccording to royal biographer Tina Brown, despite eight curtain calls from the audience, Charles did not stand. As soon as Diana makes her surprises appearance on stage, Charles is tense. The episode in question starts with the suggestion that Charles feels embarrassed, and perhaps a little envious, of the press attention given to Diana.ĭuring the scene, he appears sullen and deeply focused on the music.