Uptown
The Crystals
Written by Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann
Peaked at # 13 in 1962
Produced by Phil Spector. One of Spector's first major hits to use castanets as a
percussion effect. According to legend, this song was originally given to Tony Orlando, who
turned it down only to watch it become a Top 15 hit by The Crystals.
He gets up each morning and he goes downtown
Where everyone's his boss and he's lost in an angry land
He's a little man
But then he comes uptown each ev'nin' to my tenement
Uptown where folks don't have to pay much rent
And when he's there with me he can see that he's everything
Then he's tall, he don't crawl, he's a king
Downtown he's just one of a million guys
He don't get no breaks and he takes all they got to give
'cause he's got to live
But then he comes uptown where he can hold his head up high
Uptown he knows that I am standing by
And when I take his hand there's no man who could put him down
The world is sweet, it's at his feet when he's uptown
Whoa-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh
Yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh, oh-yeah
Let me tell ya now
Uptown where he can hold his head up high
Uptown he knows that I am standing by
And when I take his hand there's no man who could put him down
The world is sweet, it's at his feet, when he's uptown
Whoa-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh
Yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah
Let me tell ya now, uptown
FADE
Whoa-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh