The Jessie in “Jessie’s Girl” is frankly lucky to be alive. Because, as we all know, Rick Springfield wanted his girl. And Rick isn’t above smokin’ a mofo. By the time that song came out, Rick had already taken a life. Seriously.
Back in the late ’60s, Rick was a 17-year-old kid living in Australia when his band was chosen to go entertain the troops.
Now, if you watch a lot of war movies, you know that things could get pretty lawless over in ‘Nam, and the musicians got to buddy up with the soldiers… to the point they ended up helping out during a battle.
According to Rick, in a 2012 interview: “They said, here, you throw the mortars down. So I threw the mortars down the tube. And the next morning, the soldiers came running into our villa and said, ‘You got one!'”
“They said, here, you throw the mortars down. So I threw the mortars down the tube. And the next morning, the soldiers came running into our villa and said, ‘You got one!'”
Rick Springfield
Rick wasn’t exactly thrilled that he’d killed a guy. At the time of the 2012 interview, he still wasn’t over it. He said, “It was an enemy, it was wartime, they were sneaking up on us trying to get us. But I wasn’t in the army. I wasn’t meant to be there. It’s something that I still haven’t fully processed.”
