Music Blog

April 24, 1981

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

This week at Glyn Wilton’s Mixed Music Bag,
he’s asking us to write about a song in which
the title or a line mentions the current month. 
Here’s my featured April artist and his song.

© Amazon

One of the things I really enjoy about music blogging on WordPress is never knowing which direction a music prompt will lead. Whenever music is involved, there’s bound to be a lot of memories; this week’s Mixed Music Bag is no exception.

The year was 1980 and I was a very busy mom with two baby boys – Will, 2 yrs old and David, a newborn. One thing I learned very quickly as a mom was to keep the same schedule as my babies; I ate when they ate, bathed when they bathed and slept when they slept. Things like cooking, cleaning the house or hanging the wash somehow got done while the babies were awake, either in their playpen, crawling around the kitchen or strapped onto my chest.

During the boys’ nap time, I’d try to rest; sometimes I’d flip on MTV and that’s when I first saw the Australian rocker Rick Springfield singing about “Jessie’s Girl”. He was gorgeous and it was love at first sight. A couple of years later when I learned that Rick Springfield was starring on the soap General Hospital, I tuned in. Not since George Harrison some 20 years earlier did I have such a strong crush! It didn’t matter that I was a thirty-something married woman with small children; I needed a distraction, a harmless diversion, and Rick Springfield fit the bill very nicely.

This is where the magic of Glyn’s MMB comes into play. While searching around for some April-themed songs, I happened to land on one by none other than my former Aussie heart-throb, Rick Springfield …. and the memories came rushing back. I found his song three weeks ago but held onto it until now simply because of its name – “April 24, 1981” – which happens to be today’s date.

It’s also the day Rick Springfield’s father died.

While doing an interview on the Hot Ones Radio Show in 1984, Rick said, “The older we get, the more like our fathers we become, and women the more like their mothers they become, and I found that to be really true with me, and I’m very happy because my father was a great person. I’ll tell you, if I can be to whatever family I eventually have, how my father was to me, I’ll be very happy.”

Rick Springfield’s “April 24, 1981” is a very short and meaningful tribute to his dad whom he obviously loved very much. The song is the final track from his 6th studio album, “Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet”, released in 1982.

This is “April 24, 1981” by Rick Springfield; at only 1:33, it’s so short, to me it sounds like a prayer.


LYRICS

I know all your life you wondered
About that step we all take alone
How far does the spirit travel on the journey
You must surely be near heaven
And it thrills me to the bone
To know Daddy knows the great unknown…

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Rick Springfield
April 24, 1981 lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

Mixed Music Bag 2025 – April 8th

Big thanks to Glyn Wilton for hosting Mixed Music Bag each week. Please be sure to follow the link and check out Glyn’s site.

Thanks for joining me today and spinning some tunes.

See you on the flip side. 😎

NAR©2025

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for Nancy’s Notes 🖊️🎶, The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk, and The Rhythm Section, et. al., and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

21 thoughts on “April 24, 1981”

  2. Nancy, Rick and Geo both had that same kind of modified mullet at one point. Maybe it’s mullet madness? 😉

    So wonderful Rick honored his father in this way, and with the specific date of his passing is the entry into his prayer. The music has a hymn-like quality to it.

    Nice write-up.

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  5. Before I got married, my father told me, “Take a good look at your mother-in-law, because there is a good chance that is what your wife will look like in 25 years from now.” Nice choice today, Nancy.

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  8. Lovely share Nancy, …first and second crushes delve deep and stay, …forever in the mind, …I’ll play the song later, it’s 6.50am here, don’t want to wake the neighbours, …then again their dog keeps me awake so I’ll reciprocate, …🎵Definitely not long enough, ..but it was so beautiful, …💫🎵💫

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