How did Jessie Get the Girl？
How did Jessie get the girl? In this episode of Leave It to Neva, host Neva Lee Recla welcomes dad and guest Justin Recla. Their conversation dives into this 80’s song series, unpacking stereotypes and hidden misogyny in these songs, starting with the song “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield. Even though this was written decades ago, the fight for gender equality continues today. Tune in to know how the song resonates with the current social issues as Neva and Justin dissect how Jessie got the girl.
Neva Lee Recla:
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Leave It To Neva Show. This is your host Neva Lee Recla, and today we have something kind of special. We’re going to be answering the question, how did Jesse get the girl?
Justin Recla:
Because you know I want Jesse’s Girl.
Neva Lee Recla:
And if you cannot tell I have my father and sperm donor here with me and we had the idea a little while ago because we’re listening to music and on our TV and then Jesse’s girl came up and then we had a conversation. We were like, “These lyrics don’t seem too good for women.” Or just like in general for relationships and-
Justin Recla:
Or well for guys is.
Neva Lee Recla:
And for guys, they don’t paint them in the best light.
Justin Recla:
Yes. Don’t paint them in the best light.
Neva Lee Recla:
And so we were like, “Let’s do a series on Leave it to Neva to talk all about like different 80 songs and what the lyrics might actually mean, perhaps?”
Justin Recla:
Well, the programming, right? I mean people my age, people that grew up in the eighties and look at the music from your own era, but what the programming was that we seemed to listen to.
Neva Lee Recla:
And how it sounds in today’s age. And so we’re thinking of dissecting that and I think that this will be quite a fun space.
Justin Recla:
It’s going to be a lot of fun.
Neva Lee Recla:
And honestly, I think, I have the lyrics pulled up next to me right now, and looking at some of the things that are said, and I kind of wonder if when the writer was writing this, they thought like, I’d imagine he wrote this. I wonder if he thought like, “This is going to be so romantic. I’m going to give this to Jesse’s Girl and she’s going to love it.” Then like, I was Jesse’s girl, I would want to run in the opposite direction, honestly. I think, Dad if you’re cool with this, we could go into a break and then just jump right into dissecting it?
Justin Recla:
Yes. Let’s just go break and then jump right into the, where was Rick when he sang this?
Neva Lee Recla:
And so before we go into the break and before we dive further into this conversation, remember to go check out our community. We have a wonderful network of people here to love and support you for who you are, no matter the journey that you are on, no matter how you identify what you look like, all of it. We’re here to love you. If you want to lean into that. And if you want to come into places and play, we’re here for that too. We have a lot of cool events and a lot of awesome other podcasts. And remember to stay tuned for Leave It To Neva. This is like the fifth episode I want to say now, fourth or fifth. So it’s continuing to grow and thank you for your support. So yeah, definitely go check that out. It’s superpowerexperts.com. Check out our community. It’s awesome.
Justin Recla:
Come play.
Neva Lee Recla:
Come play. All right. We’ll be right back after the break. We’ve been talking all about how did Jesse get the girl.
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