How Billy Joel Classic ‘Big Shot’ Was Inspired by Mick Jagger

“Big Shot” by Billy Joel was inspired by a well-known musician.

The Piano Man wrote the 1978 song with the Stones’ frontman, Mick Jagger, and his first wife, Bianca Jagger, in mind.

“I was thinking of Mick singing that to her,” Joel, 76, told Howard Stern during a 2010 episode of his eponymous talk show, clarifying speculation about the exact origins.

It was rumored that the song was about a bad date Joel had with Mick’s wife, which Joel has denied. “I read that the song ‘Big Shot’ is said to be about a date I had with Bianca Jagger,” he previously said in a 2006 interview. “I never had a date with Bianca Jagger.”

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“Well, you went uptown ridin’ in your limousine / With your fine Park Avenue clothes,” the song starts with punchy lyrics inspired by a night out in New York.

“And they were all impressed with your Halston dress / And the people that knew at Elaine’s / And the story of your latest success / You kept ’em so entertained,” he sings in the second verse.

Bianca, now 80, was a jet-setter, known in the New York nightlife crowd, going out at Studio 54 and a fixture on VIP lists at parties, similar to the visuals Joel creates in the song.

She was known for her dazzling outfits and being well-connected with other A-listers, photographed with Calvin Klein, Liza Minnelli, Halston and Andy Warhol, among others.

The music video takes things a step further with Joel’s dramatic facial expressions and mannerisms that were comparable to Mick’s swagger.

Mick, 82, and Bianca met in 1970 at an industry event while Mick was on tour. They wed the following year in a lavish ceremony in Saint-Tropez, France. They were the It Couple of the 1970s, but their relationship was ill-fated.

​​”I wasn’t attracted to Mick for physical reasons,” Bianca told PEOPLE in 1977 about the Rolling Stones frontman.

“I found him shy, vulnerable, human — the opposite of everything I had ever imagined. It sounds silly, but it was like a bolt of lightning.”

The couple welcomed daughter Jade shortly after getting married. “In the first years of our marriage, I played the wife. I was docile and subservient … but groupies weren’t an easy thing to get used to,” she added at the time, speaking with PEOPLE.

Bianca filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery in 1978, a year after Mick started seeing model Jerry Hall. Months later, 52nd Street was released, which included “Big Shot.”