Lately something's changed that ain't hard to define

Rick Springfield, Razorcake #141 & SoCal shows

Nuvia and I have an age gap of ten years. I’m ten years older and she’s at least that many years wiser. We met when I was in my late 30s and she was in her late 20s so the difference has never struck either one of us as strange or awkward—until recently.

I told her I was listening to the audio recording of Late, Late at Night by Rick Springfield.

“Who’s that?” she asked.
“Excuse me? Dr. Noah Drake?
“Never heard of him.”
“You have to have heard ‘Jessie’s Girl?’”
“Nope.”

Mind blown.

I quickly went to my external audio memory system, i.e. YouTube and played the video “Jessie’s Girl.”

Nuvia confirmed that she’d never heard it before.

This makes perfect sense, of course. “Jessie’s Girl” came out in 1981. I was 13, an age when I was starting to yearn for girls in an intense but abstract way. Nuvia was three.

And Rick Springfield?

He was 31 and “Jessie’s Girl” was from his fifth album, Working Class Dog. Although “Jessie’s Girl” is often referred to as a one-hit wonder, the man paid his dues and then some.

When “Jessie’s Girl” came out, the song dominated the radio in a way that’s inconceivable today. In his book, Springfield mentions driving home in LA and the song was being played simultaneously on three different radio stations. He wasn’t just famous, he was mega-famous.

Late Late at Night was recommended to me by a friend who was struck by Springfield’s emotional honesty and the way he addresses his lifelong depression, which he refers to as The Darkness. (He turns him into a recurring character named Mr. D.) I was charmed by Springfield’s narrative voice and constantly surprised by the things he revealed about himself.

The book opens with the weeks leading up to the success of “Jessie’s Girl” and then takes us back to his childhood in Australia. Yes, Australia. Rraise your hand if you knew that Rick Springfield is Australian.

His real name is Richard Springthorpe and it was changed by his first manager who got him his first gig in a touring band. Springfield’s family moved around a lot and as a moody, music-loving kid with long hair he was constantly picked on by bullies in Australia’s ultra-macho, misogynist culture.

Springfield was so eager to get out of Australia that when he was still a teenager he signed on with a band that toured around Vietnam playing army bases. The catch?

It was 1968.

The band played in places close to the action that the USO thought was too dangerous to go. Not just once or twice, but for six months. Gigs were regularly interrupted by enemy fire. One night the fighting was so intense that Springfield retreated to a fire base with some soldiers and he helped load the shells into mortar tubes. He’s pretty sure he killed someone that night.

The band returned to Oz malnourished and with severe PTSD. The lead singer contracted a kidney disease in the bush and was dead within the year.

It kind of puts “horror stories” from touring into perspective. Living off of fast food and sleeping on floors sounds like pretty good duty after spending six months in the jungle.

L.A. years

I was especially interested Springfield’s move to LA in the ‘70s. I love stories about artists whose careers are this close to taking off and then for whatever reason don’t, but they persevere and eventually achieve the success they were striving for. Springfield had four records with different labels before everything broke the right way with Working Class Dog.

Before reading Late Late at Night I thought of Springfield primarily as a vocalist but this misses the mark. He’s a guitar player first, a songwriter second, and an actor third. Though he didn’t participate in the LA punk scene, he was aware of it, and name checks The Knack, who were regulars at Madam Wong’s before their big breakout.

Late Late at Night came out in 2014 and at the end of the book Springfield doesn’t act like he’s got everything figured out with regards to his issues with infidelity and depression. If the book was written after #MeToo he might have been a little more circumspect about his relationships with much younger women, including a teenage Linda Blair. (The book also came out a year before he appeared on Season 2 of True Detective.)

Today, Springfield continues to talk openly about his marital failings and depression, including struggling with suicidal ideation when his peers overdose or kill themselves.

Springfield prays, meditates, and medicates to keep the darkness at bay, but the thing that has always led him back to the light is songwriting. Writing songs is how he makes sense of the universe and his place in it, and he’s almost always writing and recording new material. The dude has 28 studio albums to his credit and at age 74 he’s in better shape than many musicians half his age. He made this video when he was 73.

73!

At this point in his career, Rick Springfield doesn’t have to dress up like that to pay the bills. He’s just doing his thing, pursuing his art, trying to stay one step ahead of the darkness, and I kind of love it. Although I’m not a fan of Springfield’s music, I love that he’s still engaged in making something new, and I came away from Late Late at Night with a new respect for the musician.

Even if Nuvia has never heard of him.

Currently reading: Thurston Moore’s Sonic Life.

New issue of Razorcake

In issue #141 I wrote about my encounter with former punk rocker and current Elvis impersonator during Jan and Andrea’s wedding at the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas during Punk Rock Bowling!

What about punk rock?

Some shows I’ll be going to this week/weekend in Southern California. See you there?

Thursday 8/8 Tower Bar, SD: Fear of Noise presents Deseos Primitivos, Haren (Spain), Blinding Glow, Closedown, Miss Espana (Spain)

Saturday 8/10 The Sardine, San Pedro: Recess Romp 3: Marked Men, URTC. Fleshies, Night Court, Treasure Fleet and more.

Sunday 8/11 Petco Park, SD: Jane’s Addiction + Love & Rockets

Tuesday 8/13 The Sound, Del Mar: Amyl & the Sniffers

Thanks for reading! If you liked this newsletter you might also like my latest novel Make It Stop, or the paperback edition of Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records, or my book with Bad Religion, or my book with Keith Morris. I have more books and zines for sale here. And if you’ve read all of those, consider preordering my latest collaboration The Witch’s Door and the anthology Eight Very Bad Nights.

Message from the Underworld comes out every Wednesday and is always available for free, but paid subscribers also get my deepest gratitude and Orca Alert! on most Sundays. It’s a weekly round-up of links about art, culture, crime, and killer whales.