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Rick Springfield calls 'Jessie's Girl' his 'cutest child'

Ask Rick Springfield to play "Jessie's Girl" and see what happens. The 1980 tune was the Australian rocker/actor's biggest hit, and he plays it all the time, for everyone. And it turns out that more than 30 years later, he's still not sick of doing it."It's like your cutest child," he told TODAY's Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford Tuesday about his Grammy-winning song. "You bring your cutest child

Ask Rick Springfield to play "Jessie's Girl" and see what happens. The 1980 tune was the Australian rocker/actor's biggest hit, and he plays it all the time, for everyone. And it turns out that more than 30 years later, he's still not sick of doing it.

"It's like your cutest child," he told TODAY's Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford Tuesday about his Grammy-winning song. "You bring your cutest child out and your aunts and uncles 'oooh' and 'aaah' over it. That's basically what it is with a song like that."

And these days he's got all kinds of different family members attending his shows, whether they be a recent fan event in Florida or as part of his "Stripped Down" solo performance tour he's currently doing. 

It's just the latest chapter in what Springfield calls his "peculiar life," one that includes being a rock star, a soap opera actor (he's appeared as Dr. Noah Drake on "General Hospital" on and off since 1981) and as of next year, a novelist. His first book, "Magnificent Vibration," is due out in May 2014. 

"I wanted to be a novel writer originally when I was a kid," he admitted, "but it was mainly all like stories like 'Scab Man' and 'The Thing That Lived Under the Stairs,' all horror stories. But then songs took over."

And chicks dig musicians, the ladies noted.

"More than writers," he agreed, and then picked up his guitar for a round of "Jessie's Girl."

Rick Springfield is on tour for "Stripped Down" until March 2014.