Rick Springfield became an International sensation thanks to his song Jessie’s Girl in 1981. The song has become one that urban legends are made of. We want to know who is Jessie and more importantly who is his girlfriend that the singer wants to find a woman like that.
This Thursday at 8:30p on AXS’s Mix Tape, the Rocker gives us the true story behind the song. He says, “I started going to this stained glass place in Pasadena. And the reason I kept going was because there was this girl there that was burning hot and she had a boyfriend, his name was Gary, and she didn’t want anything to do with me. So I took my sexual angst home and wrote a song about her. I tried ‘Gary’s Girl,’ but it didn’t ring. I actually had this original lyric sheet and I changed it to ‘Randy’s Girl.’ I’d actually started writing ‘Randy is a friend,’ and halfway through that line I thought you know what… no. So this name Jessie popped up in my head. I loved it, I went full tilt on the writing and recording thing.”
Now we know, Jessie is really Gary and Springfield did not get the girl. But he did he get a huge hit out of it. Good thing he didn’t believe in don’t talk to strangers because if he did, then he would not have met Gary and his girlfriend. Which means he would never have had this song and he never would have the career he has had. We would be like Rick Springfield who?
Next week on Mix Tape, Don McLean talks about the day the music died. In other words, what Buddy Holly meant to him.
