“I don’t know her name. Actually, it was a brief relationship I had when I was making stained glass for a while. I was going to a stained glass class in Pasadena, and I met this guy and his girlfriend. I was completely turned on to his girlfriend, but she was just not interested. So I had a lot of sexual angst, and I went home and wrote a song about it. Then about 4 months later I stopped going to the class and lost contact with them. The only thing I remember is his name was Gary, so I changed the name, because “Gary” didn’t sing very well. But the whole thing is absolutely what I was feeling. He was getting it and I wasn’t, and it was really tearing me up. And sexual angst is an amazing motivator to write a song.”Rick Springfield (379)

“I was still angry [about John Lennon being shot – Ed]. But also I was upset that the guy who shot him – there was some talk of him maybe being paroled or something. And I didn’t want that. So I revisited all the anger that I felt when that happened, because I am a huge John fan, and it was just such a waste. So it was just a late reaction to him maybe getting paroled, or talking about some kind of field trip or something for the dickhead.”Rick Springfield (379)

“I first met Sahara when she was 5 years old, and her mom had been a fan of mine when she was a little girl. And she started bringing Sahara to the shows. I love kids anyway, but I remember she stood out because there was just such an incredible spirit. I just really fell in love with her, and started hanging out with her and her mom. She charmed the whole band, and anyone who met her – her teachers were falling all over her. She was one of those kids that was game for anything, like we’d go to sushi and I’d say, “I’ll give you five bucks if you eat that octopus,” and she’d do it. She used to come out to Vegas when I was working out there, and the three of us would pal around, and she was just really an amazing kid.  And absolutely out of nowhere she got this really, really aggressive brain tumor. She was a sports girl, so much energy, and the last person you would ever think that something like this would happen to. It was like happening to someone in my own family, it was so close. I did some benefits for her, and visited her, and it got pretty bad towards the end, and one day she died. I’m still in shock.”Rick Springfield (379)

“It wasn’t about crotchless underwear. It was about a relationship with a woman, trying to see through the whole sexual thing and get to the person. And it’s a male issue that the sexual thing is wagging like a big bunch of colorful balloons. It’s hard to get through that.”Rick Springfield (379)

“It’s about my wife, and about how all she brings is love. She doesn’t bring any shit. I mean, we go through it occasionally, but when you get down to it, that’s what she brings home. So that’s what the song’s about – her. 25 years later, I figure if I’m still writing love songs about her, it can’t be bad.”Rick Springfield (379)

“The song “Don’t Talk To Strangers” was my girlfriend who became my wife. I was screwing around on the road, and I was worried that she was doing the same thing while I was away. So it was my paranoia to her: I’m getting laid, but don’t you go do the same thing, because it’ll really upset me.”Rick Springfield (379)

“That’s actually one of the few that I left the real name in, just because it was such a great name. She was a girl I had met, and was really hot for, but nothing ever happened with her. But I also saw something in her that was really frightened. So I played with the words, how it initially seems like meaning sexually inside somebody, but that it also means inside the woman’s head. So that’s both the man and the woman in me writing that song.”Rick Springfield (379)