1999Released
3:12

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about Jessie's Girl. By Songfacts®.

Who is Jessie's girl? We may never know, but in a Songfacts interview with Rick Springfield, he told the story. Said Rick: "I don't know her name. It was a brief relationship I had when I was making stained glass for a while. I was going to a stained glass class in Pasadena, and I met this guy and his girlfriend. I was completely turned on to his girlfriend, but she was just not interested. So I had a lot of sexual angst, and I went home and wrote a song about it. Then about four months later I stopped going to the class and lost contact with them. The only thing I remember is his name was Gary, so I changed the name, because 'Gary' didn't sing very well. But the whole thing is absolutely what I was feeling. He was getting it and I wasn't, and it was really tearing me up." "Sexual angst is an amazing motivator to write a song," he added. "Actually, Oprah's people tried to find her, and they got as far back as finding the stained glass guy. I couldn't remember his name, but I said it was late '70s. They found him, and he had died two years earlier, and they'd thrown all his papers out a year after that. So we missed finding out who she was by a year."

This song was a runaway hit that seemed to come out of nowhere, but Springfield, a native of Australia who split time growing up between that country and England, had spent the previous 10 years grinding away as both a singer and actor. In 1971 he had a moderate hit with his first single, "Speak To The Sky." A year later he moved to America and released four albums from 1972-1976, none of which got much attention. He started acting and landed guest roles on TV staples like The Six Million Dollar Man and Wonder Woman. 1981 was his breakout year: In February he released the Working Class Dog album, and a month later he started appearing on the soap opera General Hospital in a regular role as Dr. Noah Drake. "Jessie's Girl" started climbing the charts soon after, bolstered by his popularity on General Hospital. It became one of the biggest hits of the year and one of most enduring and best-loved songs from the '80s.

"Jessie's Girl" was the #1 song in the United States when MTV launched on August 1, 1981. The video became a favorite on the fledgling network, which was thrilled to have a well-produced promo for a very popular contemporary hit with the guitar as lead instrument (most of their library was filled with synthy acts like Human League and A Flock Of Seagulls). In the video, the photogenic Springfield uses his acting skills to portray his angst. Springfield says it's his only video where he took creative control, storyboarding it himself. The scene where he smashes the mirror remains an iconic clip; it was the most expensive part of the video, since Rick estimates they went through 24 mirrors.

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of Jessie's Girl.
DKey
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
132BPM

Album

The album Jessie's Girl is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released Jessie's Girl.
RCA Records Label
(P)1999 BMG Entertainment

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