Songfacts®:

• "Rich Girl" is a rewrite of "If I Were A Rich Man" from the musical Fiddler On The Roof. There are some stark lyrical differences: in "Rich Man," the main character Tevye wants food on the table and chickens in the yard - that's his idea of "rich." Stefani's rich girl has more expensive tastes: she wants to buy a Hollywood mansion and clean out the Vivienne Westwood store.
• Stefani is joined by the rapper Eve on this track. They first teamed up in 2001 for "Let Me Blow Ya Mind," included on Eve's album Scorpion. Both songs were produced by Dr. Dre.
• The pop arrangement of the song was originally performed by British musicians Louchie Lou and Michie One in 1993 on their song called "Rich Girl," although Stefani added and modified the lyrics considerably. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Steve - Gaithersburg, MD
• Love.Angel.Music.Baby was Stefani's first solo album, but she was well known for her work in No Doubt. "Rich Girl" was released as the second single (after "What You Waiting For?" and was a worldwide hit, reaching #2 in Australia, #4 in both Canada and the United Kingdom, and peaking at #7 in the United States. The song established an image of Stefani as a sassy, contemporary jet-setter - she was no longer "Just A Girl."
• The music video, directed by David LaChapelle, takes place on the world's sexiest pirate ship, with Stefani and Eve swashbuckling with lots of shirtless sailors. Apparently there's a VIP area below deck. The aesthetic was inspired by a late '90s pirate-themed ad campaign for fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, titled "Tied To The Mast."
  
  LaChapelle, whose other work includes Christina Aguilera's "Dirrty" and Mariah Carey's "Loverboy," is also a famous photographer known for his highly stylized portraits of pop stars. He approaches his videos in the same over-the-top fashion, which made Stefani nervous.
  
  "I worked with David LaChapelle on the video, who's absolutely crazy," the singer told Billboard in 2019. "That video was a nightmare to make. People were partying in the trailer with Pamela Anderson, and I cried on set. It was a wild time. I had such an idea of what I wanted it to be, and what he came up with was so elaborate. There was really no concept, so I didn't know if it was gonna turn out good. It ended up being great, but it was such a crazy day."
  
  Stefani and LaChapelle previously worked together on the video for No Doubt's 2003 cover of Talk Talk's "It's My Life."
• Stefani and Eve teamed up to perform this song on a number of shows, including Saturday Night Live and the British show Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway. They also sang it at the Grammy Awards in 2005, where the song was nominated for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, an award they won for "Let Me Blow Ya Mind" four years earlier. The Grammy performance recreated the video with the pirate ship set and elaborate costumes.
• The Harajuku Girls get a shout-out in this song and appear in the video. They were four dancers of Japanese descent who provided a visual motif for Stefani's Love.Angel.Music.Baby album, appearing in the videos and artwork, and joining Gwen for promotional appearances.
  
  Harajuku is a very fashionable area in Japan that Stefani discovered while traveling the country.
• Stefani contemplates what life would be like "If I was a rich girl." This is grammatically incorrect. It should be "If I were a rich girl," because subjunctive verbs (in this case, "I were" is the subjunctive mood of the verb "to be") are used to express hypothetical or imaginary situations. Notice the original tune, "If I Were A Rich Man," gets it right.
• Stefani was already a rich girl by the time she released her debut solo album, which is why she didn't think the song's concept would work for her.
  
  "Dre's the one who came to me with 'Rich Girl.' I thought it was the weirdest idea ever," she told Billboard. "I was like, 'I am rich!' I went from having $2,000 living with my parents to buying my own house, like, hello! And I'm not hip-hop, so I can't be throwing money around thinking that's gonna work. But Dre's the man."
  
  Stefani had to find a way to connect with the Fiddler On The Roof interpolation and settled on a dream-like approach that borrowed from her real-life experiences. She continued:
  
  "I was running on a treadmill in London and the lyrics just came to my brain. It was the perspective of me living the dream. I put that vision into the verses: I had a mansion in London, Harajuku Girls and these things that actually happened in my life. That was the only way I could embrace the song's interpolation, which was perfect for me, because I love musicals."