Why Jessie in Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” Was Almost Given a Different Name

In 1981, we got some of the biggest hits of the decade. “Bette Davis Eyes”, “9 to 5” and “Lady” were among some of the year’s standout tracks. However, no story is quite as interesting as the one that comes along with Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl”. As fans of it know, the song was inspired by a real person that Springfield was interested in and her real boyfriend at the time.

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In the popular tune, Springfield sings about a girl from his stained-glass class that he had a crush on. Springfield was apparently “obsessed” with this girl, but unfortunately, she was already taken.

“I only [took the class] for a couple of months, and she was this hot girl in the class and had a boyfriend,” Springfield explained of the song to Daily Blast Live. “I took my sexual angst home and wrote a song.”

However, the guy Springfield sings about wasn’t actually named Jessie. Unsure whether he wanted to call out the boyfriend, the singer went back and forth between a couple of names. One of those was the girl’s boyfriend’s real name, Gary. Another option Springfield had in mind was Randy.

“I actually had this original lyric sheet, and I changed it to Randy’s Girl,” the singer revealed. “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 of the touring and writing and recording thing.”

Who Really Was Jessie’s Girl?

Even though Springfield doesn’t mention who “Jessie’s Girl” is, one can hope that perhaps the success of a hit song would have led to some eventual romantic success. Unfortunately, as the actor and singer told Louder, that’s not what happened.

“Nobody ever came up to me and professed to be her, and I guess that’s kind of a shame,” he shared. “I don’t know if she’s aware that “Jessie’s Girl” is about her. In later years she may have read that Gary was part of the song’s background, seen the reference to stained glass and put two and two together, but it’s more than likely that she doesn’t know. Hey, I got a pretty good song out of it so I’m okay with the deal.”

Honestly, “good song” is an understatement. Not only did “Jessie’s Girl” reach No. 1 in August of 1981, but it also ended up being ranked by Billboard as one of the top songs for that year.

If I were “Jessie’s Girl”, I would be taking credit for sure.

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