I don't hear it often, and when I do it is usually over the in-house speakers of a restaurant, grocery story, or some sort of retailer. The frequency in which I encounter the song is so rare that it is over before I have a chance to roll my eyes in disgust.
Billy Joel wrote the song while hanging out with a trio of beautiful women, Elle Macpherson (his girlfriend at the time), Christie Brinkley (his future wife and star of the Uptown Girl music video), and Whitney Houston. The subject could have been any of the three ladies, each came from privileged upbringing. Meanwhile, Billy was a kid from the Bronx who grew up poor, dropped out of high school, and hustled his craft playing piano in seedy bars and dimly lit clubs to help support his single mother. The song wasn't autobiographical, yet it highlighted the differences between Billy and the high class women in his life. They were raised on different sides of the proverbial tracks. The song's narrator and the object of his affection were the unlikely couple who made it work. An uptown girl and a downtown man.
Out in a public setting this morning, the song began to play in the background. As I waited to be served, I thought of the story behind the song. I found myself empathizing with the singer. I thought of the relationship between me and my girlfriend. We don't exactly mirror the relationship between Billy Joel and Elle/Christie. Without overstating the obvious, neither of us are famous. Furthermore, neither of us are uptown or downtown. Yet, like the couple from the song, there is a difference between where we come from.
If I were the one to pen the lyrics to Uptown Girl, she would be a country girl and I'd be a suburban dude.
We are not opposites attracted to each other as the adage implies. Politically and theologically speaking, my girlfriend and I are quite alike. We share similar philosophies on parenting and communication. We enjoy many of the same hobbies. We both crave good Chinese food and neither of us like eating fish. For all our similarities, the geographic backgrounds which shaped our personalities and worldviews are as different as those between Billy's downtown man and his uptown love.
I grew up on the west side of the mountains and my girlfriend was raised on the east side. My hometown is what I always thought of as a small town. The last sign of population driving north from Seattle before the scenery devolved into dairy and produce farms. However, my girlfriend comes from a smaller small town, one which in comparison would make Marysville look like a metropolis. I was weened on grunge and punk rock, she was surrounded by country western music. The fashion of my youth were baggy pants and Doc Martens, hers were bootcut jeans pulled over a pair of well worn cowboy boots. I fell asleep to the sounds of traffic while crickets lulled her to slumber.
As I moved away from the Puget Sound area, I always stayed in or near a big (ish) city. Boise. Sioux Falls. And now Cd'A/Spokane. She left her everyone-knows-everybody town for the bigger city life of Spokane. And here is where she and I became we.
I've noticed a funny thing about those who grew up in a rural setting compared to those who did not. Take a country girl (or boy) out of the country and she (or he) is still a country girl (or boy). They will feel comfortable in almost any setting, be it a concrete jungle, bedroom community, a resort town, alpine village, or post-apocalyptic wasteland. The country life follows you and remains inside you. For people like me, the burbs are home. Cookie cutter neighborhoods, fancy parks, manicured lawns, garage sales mobile food trucks, and coffee stands on every corner are security items. We find solace in the sounds of sirens from police cruisers, firetrucks, and ambulances wailing in the distance. Take us a way from the house parties and the crowds and the Taco Bells, and we are out of our element. We feel a little weird. We begin to long for streetlights and honking horns of road-raging drivers.
I'm from the suburbs and she's a country girl. Wherever we go, it seems she's more at home than I am. I'm learning though. She's got me riding horses and watching the sunset in places removed from high rises and office lights. I've invested in bug spray and bought my first pair of cowboy boots. More and more I am longing for something I've never had: a country lifestyle. As long as I have wi-fi, it doesn't really matter to me, I can write from anywhere. Sooner or later, I'll be a suburban guy in the country. It might be awkward for a while but I'll make it work. And this thing with the country girl? It's love.
photo credit: Annie, she also takes better pictures than me
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