Today's '80s question

[yendi]

[Poll #1487220]

(Follow-up question #1: How come he only knows the name of Jessie, and not the titular girl?)

(Follow-up question #2: What's with the name "Jessie/Jesse" in the '80s, anyway?)

Comments

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

For an Hofstadteresque exercize, we once replaced the word "Girl" with "Car" in the song "Jessie's Girl", and it mostly mapped without any other changes (except for the obvious "Where can I find an auto like that?").

[yendi]

Heh. Yeah, I see that working pretty well, too.

[28bytes.livejournal.com]

My theory is that it was originally written thusly...

"You know, I wish that I was Jessie's girl,
I wish that I was Jessie's girl
Why can I be a woman like that?"

...but Rick and his manager got into a huge argument about whether it should be "was" or the more correct "were" and they finally said, to hell with it, let's just make it about the girl instead of Jessie.

[yendi]

Possible, but don't forget that this was the '80s, a decade in which Bryan Adams could get away with the line, "that'd change if she ever found out about you and I." :-)

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's how I hear it.

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

Me too.

[ioianthe.livejournal.com]

Can I choose "jessie's life, SWF style" ?

[yendi]

Hee! I should have had an "other" option.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

At last, I will be able to listen to this annoying song and giggle instead of grumbling. Thank you, yendi. |)

[yendi]

:-) Glad to help!

(I actually like the song, in a guilty pleasure sort of way.)

[enderfem.livejournal.com]

My best friend in college had a huge crush on a guy named Jessie, so we always sang it as "I wish that I was Jessie's girl."

[yendi]

Ha! You were just reaching in and grabbing the song by its subtext!

[allroads.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NXqxx-6o1M

[yendi]

Ah, Jimmy. A truly underappreciated talent.

[cscottd.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's... both?

[jerel.livejournal.com]

He does know the girl's name. In the video, it's spray-painted on the wall: "Patty is Jessie's girl." "Jessie's Girl" scans better.

Or if you really want to over-read it, she has no identity outside of her status as Jessie's girlfriend, and the narrator sees her merely as an object to be acquired. :)

[captain18.livejournal.com]

I've always mentally coupled this song with The Outfield's "Your Love". Like, imagine that Jessie's girl is named Josie and then listen to "Jessie's Girl" and then "Your Love".

Kind of like how I also mentally see "Stacy's Mom" as a sequel to "1985".

[kires.livejournal.com]

I've always been fairly sure that the chorus actually replaces "had" with "was" at some points. that kinda creeped me out when I was a teenager...