Rick Springfield didn't think he'd ever get a record deal. Then Jessie's girl walked in

Ed Masley, Arizona Republic

August 20, 2022 at 8:20 PM·11 min read

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Rick Springfield was starting to think it might be time to learn a trade.

He'd been trying to make it in music since learning guitar in his teens, enjoying some early success as a member of Zoot, an Australian band whose biggest hit was a hard-rocking cover of "Eleanor Rigby," before going solo with "Speak to the Sky."

An uplifting ode to the power of prayer with a singalong chorus, barrelhouse piano and one of pop music's more prominent uses of tuba, Springfield's breakthrough single peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1972.

After nearly a decade of doing all he could to build on that momentum, it remained his only proper U.S. hit. (Although he did come close when "Take a Hand" hit No. 41.)

So he decided it was maybe time to try his hand at something he believed would be more practical.

He would learn to be a stained glass master.

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Meeting Jessie's girl in stained glass class

"I didn't think I'd get a record deal and I was looking for how to make money," Springfield says.

That's how he met the muse who changed his life.

"There was a girl in stained glass class who I was hot for but she had a boyfriend and didn't want anything to do with me," Springfield recalls.

"So I took my sexual angst home and wrote 'Jessie's Girl' about her."

Released in February 1981, that song hit No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 six months later on its way to picking up a Grammy as the first of three hit singles from "Working Class Dog," the platinum triumph that established Springfield as a major artist.

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Rick Springfield gets the Knack

He was living in Los Angeles by then, a move inspired by the Knack, who'd topped the Hot 100 two years earlier with "My Sharona" from their double-platinum debut album "Get the Knack."

"I'd been turned down by every label and had pretty much lost confidence that I would ever get another record deal," he says.

His first album, "Beginnings," had done all right, a success largely driven by "Speak to the Sky."

The three albums that followed, Springfield says, "had varying degrees of super minor success but nothing like what I was looking for. And the Knack had just been discovered in the LA clubs, so I thought '(Expletive) it. I'm gonna go do that then.'"

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Writing 'Working Class Dog' for the rock clubs

By the time he inked a deal with RCA, the songs that would end up on "Working Class Dog" had more or less been written with one goal in mind — to rock those LA clubs.

"I wrote all these songs to be short, hooky and, you know, if you didn't like one, stick around; there's another one coming right up," he recalls, with a laugh. "They're simple and they all have good hooks and a ton of energy."

In retrospect, it's obvious that Springfield picked the perfect time to make that kind of record. Hearing those guitars on "Jessie's Girl" in 1981 was just beyond refreshing.

RCA had no idea what to do with a guitar-rock record at the tail end of the disco era, though.

"Rock guitars hadn't been on pop radio for a long time," Springfield says.

"Certain stations were playing Pat Benatar's first song, 'Heartbreaker.' AC/DC were getting played on the heavier stations. The Cars had had a couple hits. But they were still pushing the disco. So the record company just sat on it for a while and eventually decided to release it."

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The recording of 'Working Class Dog'

Springfield had recorded the entire album at Sound City, a legendary LA studio that would become the subject of a Dave Grohl documentary.

Springfield's manager, Joe Gottfried, owned the studio and let him come in at odd hours to record.

"He was a real caring guy," Springfield says.

"We got this deal with RCA and didn't have a budget for it. So we'd be hanging out at home and he'd say, 'OK, Tom Petty just finished' at 1 in the morning. 'Why don't you come in? You've got until 8.' We'd jump in our cars and go flying down there and record. It was definitely guerrilla warfare. Hit 'em and leave. It was all so exciting."

Most songs were produced by Springfield and recording engineer Bill Drescher.

"Jessie's Girl" and "I've Done Everything for You," the album's biggest hits, were produced by Keith Olsen, who brought in Pat Benatar's husband Neil Giraldo to handle lead guitar and bass on those songs.

"He was a very successful producer in the '80s with Foreigner, Fleetwood Mac, Pat Benatar, a ton of really big hits," Springfield says.

"And he worked at the studio that my manager owned. So my manager asked him, 'Would you do a song with Rick?' I was unknown at the time. But he said 'Bring the demos over.'"

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How 'Jessie's Girl' became the one

Springfield went to Olsen's house and played the demos.

"And as soon as he heard 'Jessie's Girl,' he said 'That one,'" the singer, recalls with a laugh.

"And I was disappointed because I thought there were better songs on the album. I thought 'Everybody's Girl' or 'Carry Me Away or 'The Light of Love' were just as strong as 'Jessie's Girl.' But he had the ear. And he picked 'Jessie's Girl.'"

Olsen had agreed to do two songs. And after hearing Springfield's demos, he decided on a Sammy Hagar cover, 'I've Done Everything for You,' to be the second song.

"I was bummed he didn't pick another one of my songs," Springfield says. "But Sammy Hagar had a name."

Despite his disappointment, Springfield figured Olsen knew what he was doing.

"I trusted Keith," he says.

"And he was doing me a big favor by taking me on because I was a total unknown and he could pick his projects at that point. I thought the song was a little different to what I would've written. But as someone said the other day, it was the right song at the right time."

"I've Done Everything for You" was actually released as the album's lead single.

"But it didn't do anything," Springfield says.

"And the radio stations started playing 'Jessie's Girl' so they released that and it took off. Then they rereleased 'I've Done Everything' after 'Jessie's Girl.' It was a great rocking song. I guess it just needed a little entree of who I was to have them play it."

Springfield wasn't sure if either song would be a hit, but he felt really good about the work they'd done.

"Tom Kelly, who later wrote 'Like a Virgin' and 'True Colors,' was a background singer at the time," Springfield says.

"So he and I did all the backgrounds. He'd come in and go, 'Wow, I really like this. This is a totally happening album.' And that's always good for an artist to hear. Because it's all about the hook for me. So the fact that it was getting noticed was a good sign."

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Dr. Noah Drake and the double-edged swords

By the time the album hit the streets, Springfield had taken a part on a soap opera, playing Dr. Noah Drake on "General Hospital."

"It was all serendipitous, really," Springfield says. "It sounds like it was planned. But it wasn't."

Being a TV star on one of the hottest shows of the summer as "Jessie's Girl" was creeping ever closer to the top of Billboard's Hot 100 had obvious advantages.

"It was a double-edged sword, though," Springfield says.

"AOR radio started playing 'Jessie's Girl' because it was such a guitar song. Then they'd find out I was also on this soap opera and they would drop the song because they thought it was all hype or (expletive) or something. But it definitely kind of double-lit the rocket fuse for sure."

'Pretty boys are a dime a dozen'

The other double-edged sword he had to face as "Jessie's Girl" was taking off was being something of a shriek-inducing heartthrob — which is why he was so adamant about putting a shot of his actual dog on the cover of "Working Class Dog."

"It was a hard sell to the record company, especially when they found out I was also on 'General Hospital,'" Springfield says.

"So I bought a shirt for Ronnie, my dog, put a tie on him, took a Polaroid and mocked up a record cover. And they liked it, actually, enough to go with it. RCA wasn't having a lot of success at that point. I think if it had been a bigger label, they might've dug their heels in said, 'Nah, you gotta have your photo on the front.'"

By that point, Springfield had already put his face on several album sleeves with nothing much to show for it.

"I was sick of seeing pretty boy shots on the cover," Springfield says. "Pretty boys are a dime a dozen. I wanted something that would attract attention. And everybody loved my dog."

The album art went on to earn a Grammy nod, although it lost out to the Rolling Stones.

"So I was vindicated," Springfield says. "To a degree."

As for the dog?

"He didn't see much money," Springfield says. "But he got treats."

'Jessie's Girl' is 'more famous than me'

Watching "Jessie's Girl" inch its way to No. 1 was a very exciting experience for Springfield.

"I had songs that had charted before, but certainly not to that extent," he says.

"I kept thinking, 'OK, maybe it'll get up to 30.' It'd get up to 30 and I'd go 'OK, maybe that's it.' Then it would get up to 20 and I'd go, 'Wow, well, OK, maybe that's it.' But it just kept climbing. One thing I'll say about 'Jessie's Girl.' It's got legs."

Even now, that song remains his calling card.

"I got in the elevator with my band and some kid, he must have been like 15, he said 'You guys look like musicians,'" Springfield recalls, with a laugh.

"We go 'Yeah.' He said, 'Who?' So my guy said, 'Rick Springfield.' He kind of nods his head. Then my guy said, 'You know, "Jessie's Girl."' And he went, 'What??!!' Like, it was more famous than me. He was freaked out."

And the woman in stained-glass class? Does she even know she's that famous?

"No one's ever come up to me and said, 'That was me, wasn't it?'," Springfield says. "I'd know, though, if she did."

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'I was listening to a lot of Elvis Costello'

During the pandemic, Springfield and his bandmates decided to honor the 40th anniversary of "Working Class Dog" by rerecording the entire album.

"The main part of COVID had just ended," Springfield says.

"So we all got together in my living room and played. We hadn't seen each other for about a year. I have a great band. We all love each other. It makes playing so much fun. So we did it all live without overdubs. And they nailed it."

It was really fun to play those songs again and Springfield came away from the experience with a new appreciation of where his head was in the early '80s.

"I found they had a lot of punk energy that I didn't realize at the time," he says.

"I was listening to a lot of Elvis Costello and bands like that. And I can hear that now in there, especially playing them live. There was a lot of energy in the room."

The celebration of "Working Class Dog" continues on the tour that brings Springfield to Phoenix on Monday, Aug. 29, for a Celebrity Theatre concert that also features fellow '80s veterans Men at Work and John Waite.