Songfacts®:

• Rick Springfield was born Richard Springthorpe in Australia, 1949. When he took his stage name, he had no idea that a guy from New Jersey named Bruce Springsteen would become a superstar.
  
  Springfield was the first to land a hit, charting in 1972 with a song called "Speak To The Sky." But by 1975, his career was stalled and Bruce Springsteen was everywhere, thanks to his album Born To Run. In this song, Springfield tells some stories about being confused for The Boss. They're not much alike, but when Springfield told people he was a musician and said his name, many would somehow believe he was Bruce. In the song, a kid asks for his autograph and tells him he loves Born To Run, a girl calls him "Bruce" in bed, and even his own mother gets him confused.
• Springfield recorded this song in 1978 but didn't release it. At the time, he was mostly focused on acting, and it was at auditions where he would often get mistaken for Bruce. In 1981 both his acting and music careers took flight; he landed a regular role on the soap opera General Hospital and released his album Working Class Dog, with the #1 hit "Jessie's Girl." Bruce Springsteen, meanwhile, was laying low, working on a stripped-down album called Nebraska.
  
  In 1984 Springsteen had a resurgence with Born in the U.S.A., and Springfield was on the downswing. That year, Springfield's label, without his consent, released a compilation of his old demos with new backing tracks called Beautiful Feelings, and included "Bruce," which they also released as a single.
• There's a scene that illustrates Springfield's conundrum in the 2004 movie 13 Going On 30 where the main character Jenna (Jennifer Garner) gets in a cab and her childhood crush, Chris Grandy, is driving. He's now a smarmy loser still living at home. "Jessie's Girl" comes on the radio and he says, "What's the dude who sings this? Rick Springsteen."
  
  "It's Springfield Grandy," she replies as she flees the vehicle.
• Here's another Springfield/Springsteen connection for you. Both had hit songs called "Human Touch." Springfield's was released in 1983, and Springsteen's was the title track to his 1992 album.
• The line, "It started being a bother when he made the cover of Time magazine" refers to Bruce's appearance 1975 cover story. He also made the cover of Newsweek.