Springfield alive, still kickin'

MUSKEGON -- Have you heard radio DJs say "That was 'Broken Wings,' new from Rick Springfield"?

New from Rick Springfield?

The "Jesse's Girl" guy whose cute mug had adorned the walls of countless smitten teenagers in the '80s?

Yup, same guy, but older, wiser and raspier, bearing a few scars from a life of rock 'n' roll but still singing strong.

"I sometimes like guy's voices as they get older," Springfield said in a phone interview from Chicago's O' Hare Airport, where he was waiting to catch a flight. "They sound more rough around the edges, like they know so much more about what they're singing about."

The pop heartthrob could be talking about himself. "Broken Wings," a cover of the late '80s hit from Mr. Mister, is slightly craggy, a teeny bit slower; it's worlds apart from the angst-ridden lyrics about wanting another man's girlfriend.

You would never believe "Jesse's Girl" and "Broken Wings" were sung by the same vocalist. That's just fine with Springfield, who is now scoring his first genuine hit in about 20 years.

"It's exciting," said Springfield, who is 50ish and parenting two sons, ages 16 and 19.

"Broken Wings," the first single from the soon-to-be-released cover CD, "The Day After Yesterday," typifies the album's offerings.

'Songs I wish I had written'

"We were going for a mood of atmospheric ballads," he said. "These are the songs I wish I had written, mostly from the late '70s or the '80s. Most of them aren't played that much anymore."

Fare on the CD includes "I've Been Waiting for a Girl Like You" (Foreigner), John Lennon's "Imagine" and Dream Academy's "Life in a Northern Town."

For Springfield, "The Day After Yesterday" is "like being at a party and singing songs I like."

The rocker within is alive and well, too, evidenced by Springfield's last CD, 2004's "shock/denial/anger/acceptance," a CD described as "brutally raw" and with a "snarling attitude."

It kicked, and surprised more than a few male counterparts to the singer's largely female fan base.

"We got a lot of guys with the last record," he said, humbly pleased.

It seems no matter what the singer talks about, he's gentle, bashful almost, lacking the ego and bravado one might expect from a rock star whom women throw their lacy items at onstage. On that topic, Springfield seems sheepish.

"I have to take (the female adulation) with a sense of humor. I am not really comfortable relating to people one on one," he said. "When I was 15 or 16, starting to play guitar in a band, I would turn my back to the audience I was so shy."

So shy, says the man who won The Press' "rock crush" poll by a landslide a few years ago, that he'd much rather be writing songs, strumming his guitar or pouring over the 30-some books he's got stacked on his bedside table than schmoozing with anyone.

"I'm an avid reader," Springfield said, his voice perking up. "I love books about the sea, especially." The literary enthusiast recommends the classic "Moby Dick" as well as the recent "sequel," "Ahab's Wife," by Sena J. Naslund.

The rock star as book worm? It works for Rick Springfield, not to mention the hordes of now mini-van driving fans who still think "Jesse's Girl" -- whoever she was -- had to have been out of her mind.