There's a David Bowie song, "Life on Mars," which is about a woman called Hermione Farthingale and which is featured in the book. They'll say one thing and then change their minds. When you talk to artists, they like to lead you on. People are just fascinated to learn about the muses of these artists. Hopkinson: It's just amazing how things turn out. If you go on the internet, there is actually a group that's the "Friends of Suzanne."īut in the song she lives on as this shining, hippie Bohemian who is celebrated in the song.ĬNN: What is it about these back stories that are so interesting to fans?
She had had an accident and now she was homeless and living in the back of a truck. I read a story about how quite recently - and she's had had quite a traumatic life - she left Canada and had moved to California where she was working as a choreographer. He took the poem "Suzanne," he wrote and turned it into a song. I was researching the Suzanne story which is a sort of poem and there was a whole story about this woman who originally was an artist's wife in Montreal.Ĭohen obviously fancied her and took a shine to her and she wasn't having any of it. Hopkinson: I was doing another book and I had to do some research on Leonard Cohen. I think our job, our skill if you like, was assembling a variety of them.ĬNN: What gave you guys the idea for the book?
Very little of it wasn't already in the public domain. It's a whole gaggle of different sources. Hopkinson spoke with CNN about why fans are fascinated with the stories behind songs, the reasons some musical artists like to maintain the mystery and whether there will be a book about men who inspire songs.įrank Hopkinson: We did loads of research, on the internet, through old biographies, through cuttings agencies, pieces from Radio 4, broadcasts. She went on to appear in his video, they married in 1985 and divorced in 1994. The song was originally titled "Uptown Girls" and changed to the singular after things fizzled with Macpherson and Joel took up with Brinkley.
'I didn't think that was necessarily a sensational fact, but people are shocked by that," said Hopkinson.Īccording to the book, Joel met both Brinkley and Macpherson during a Caribbean vacation. Michael Heatley and Frank Hopkinson are the authors of the book "The Girl in the Song: The True Stories Behind 50 Rock Classics." In it they claim that Joel originally penned the hit tune for another beauty: model Elle Macpherson. The pair was a couple at the time, so of course Joel wrote the song for her, right? There's Billy Joel, dressed as a mechanic singing the praises of his "Uptown Girl," the nattily dressed supermodel, Christie Brinkley. (CNN) - The music video is almost iconic for the 1980s.
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