Rick Springfield recently spoke with Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation. During their conversation, Rick reveals that he originally didn’t think of “Jessie’s Girl” as a single. He also reflects on his early days as a musician in Australia and how he came over to America.
SiriusXM's Trunk Nation, hosted by Eddie Trunk, airs daily at 3 PM, ET on SiriusXM’s Faction Talk. Audio clips and transcription below courtesy of SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation.
On "Jessie's Girl":
Rick Springfield: "I thought it was a good song. I thought it was a good album song. I didn't even think it was a single. I thought there were catchier songs on the album, and I was surprised when they actually released that as a single."
Eddie Trunk: "Really?"
Springfield: "Yeah. Well, I wasn't because Keith produced it, so they would pick that because, you know, that's an in. But you know, I thought there were better songs. And I thought, but you know, I mean, I was wrong. So I'm glad about that. When I wrote it, I remember thinking, because when you write, you're the judge and jury right there. If I don't like, if I come back to it a day later and I don't like it, I dump it. But if I do like it and it charges me up, then I finish it. And that had enough in it to charge me up. But it was really a combination of two songs. I remember the beginning of the verse and the b section of the verse were two different songs, and I suddenly found they fit together. And it was just one of those things, you know."
On Early Days Of Being A Musician:
Springfield: "Well, certainly over here because I had one solo single in Australia that was a hit. And then I started playing guitar from my girlfriend at the time, and it was a weird thing. Australia was a very small scene back then and, you know, it was no weird thing to like suddenly have a hit single as a solo artist. And then, you know, I'm playing with this, my girlfriend, you know, backing her up with guitar. So and then I left Australia in the middle of that and got a deal over here. I had a deal over here that Steve Binder, who was a director for the Elvis special, the big, you know, the black leather one."
Trunk: "The Comeback."
Springfield: "Yeah. Steve was a great guy and he found me in Australia and brought me over here and that was how I got over here."
Trunk: "How did he find you there?"
Springfield: "Robie Porter, an Australian guy whose records I used to buy as a kid, was a steel guitar player and I used to buy his records as a kid. And then when he got older, he went around looking for Australian artists 'cause no one was tapping into Australia then. No one knew where it was."
Trunk: "There's no internet."
Springfield: "Yeah. No one knew about Australia. You know, there was no shrimp on the barbie."
Trunk: "No Outback Steakhouse."
Springfield: "When I first came over here, people would say, 'Oh, you're from Australia. How long did it take you to learn English?' But it was, yeah, so I came up, Steve brought me over here and I got a deal with Capitol and had a hit with a song called 'Speak To The Sky'. That was the first song that was a hit in Australia. Yeah. And it just kind of, then they started putting me in all these teen magazines and that was just, I had no idea what a teen magazine was. You know, I do all these interviews about my music and they'd print up a story about, you know, is Rick Springfield too tall to love or something, you know. And I'd never seen a teen magazine before, so I'm going,'This is not right. I came over, you know, to be a musician and they're trying to tout me with all these, you know, The Williams Brothers and, you know, all these teen idols from the seventies.' So it was a difficult thing. And then I ended up getting into a soap opera that had, you know, just fell into it by chance."
