Prince Songs - Uptown Lyrics

Prince - Uptown

Prince - Uptown Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Dirty Mind
Released: 1980

Uptown Lyrics

She saw me walking down the streets of your fine city
It kinda turned me on when she looked at me and said, "come here"
Now I don't usually talk to strangers but she looked so pretty
What can I lose, if I, uh, just give her a little ear?
"What's up little girl?"
"I ain't got time to play"
Baby didn't say too much
She said, "Are you gay?"
Kinda took me by surprise, I didn't know what to do
I just looked her in her eyes and I said, "no, are you?"
Said to myself, said
"She's just a crazy, crazy, crazy little mixed up dame
She's just a victim of society and all its games"
Now where I come from
We don't let society tell us how it's supposed to be
Our clothes, our hair, we don't care
It's all about being there
Everybody's going Uptown
That's where I want to be
Uptown
Set your mind free
Uptown
Got my body hot
Get down
I don't want to stop, no

As soon as we got there good times were rolling
White, Black, Puerto Rican, everybody just a-freakin'
Good times were rolling
She started dancing in the streets
Ow, girl, she's just gone mad, you know
She even made love to me
Ooh, best night I ever had, ah yeah
I never talk to strangers but this time it's all right
See, she got me hot, ah, I couldn't stop, ah
Good times were rolling all night, all night, yeah
Now, where I come from we don't give a damn
We do whatever we please
It ain't about no downtown, nowhere-bound, narrow-minded drag
It's all about being free
Everybody's going uptown
It's where I want to be
Uptown
You can set your mind free, yeah
Uptown
Keep your body hot
Get down
I don't want to stop, no

Uptown
Oh, oh, yeah
Uptown
Everybody's going, everybody's going
Everybody gotta gotta uptown
Now go-go-go, go-go-go uptown

Uptown
Yeah, yeah, now, all now, uptown
Gotta go-go-go
Baby, got to go, got to, uptown
C'mon, c'mon, you, you have to, you gotta go uptown
Oh, oh, oh, baby, oh yeah

Writer/s: NELSON, PRINCE ROGERS
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Uptown

Prince said that "Uptown" was his nickname for his hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Uptown Minneapolis is located just 15 blocks from the downtown core and is not considered part of downtown. The neighborhood caters to a 21-35 crowd and is only a couple of blocks from their chain of lakes. (Thanks to the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce. For more, check out uptownminneapolis.com .)

This song is also about standing up against any kind of prejudice, whether it's targeted at skin color or style. Prince told Rolling Stone that, growing up, he and his friends "took a lot of heat all the time. People would say something about our clothes or the way we looked or who we were with, and we'd end up fighting. I was a very good fighter... I never lost. I don't know if I fight fair, but I go for it. That's what 'Uptown' is about - we do whatever we want, and those who cannot deal with it have a problem within themselves."

During a surprise phone-in interview the night before his birthday in 1985, Prince told the Detroit disc jockey, The Electrifying Mojo, what it was like to grow up in "Uptown": "Pretty different. Uh, kinda sad, to be exact. (laughs) I mean, the radio was dead, the discos was dead, ladies was kinda dead, so I felt like, if we wanted to make some noise, and I wanted to turn anything out... I was gonna have to get somethin' together. Which is what we did. We put together a few bands and turned it into Uptown. That consisted of a lot of bike riding nude, but ya know it worked. We had fun."

The song discusses the question many fans at the time had about Prince's sexuality. The lyrics made it clear that he was heterosexual. (thanks, Illya - Detroit, MI)

This was the first single from Prince's third album, Dirty Mind. The song bubbled under at #101 on the Hot 100 and made #5 on the R&B chart, providing the closest thing to a hit on the album. Dirty Mind did well with critics and fans, but aside from "Uptown," it wasn't very radio-friendly, with songs like "Head" and "When You Were Mine" that were too risqué for the public airwaves. It wasn't until Prince's fifth album, 1999 (released in 1982), that he became a regular on radio and MTV.