You Can't Hide Forever...we WILL find you...(satire)

I've imagine the scenario more than once. It's always at night and he's running down darkened streets. We walk in a large group knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to evade us. No matter where he turned we were seconds behind him until finally he runs into either an alley or is standing before an abandoned store front and finds himself desperately pleading with us. "Guys. You...you can't be serious! It was 1981." One of us would angrily say "Why not Larry, or Bobby or Steven? Hell you could have even gone Matthew!"
He would then plead with us "Come on guys it's just a song." and before we set upon him one of us would defiantly  yell "It's your damn SIGNATURE song!"  We would then rain kicks and blows upon him and as we left, one of us would start to whistle the melody of the song with which we'd been tortured and maybe one of them would look back at him as he lay in the street and taunt "Hey Springfield...this is all just a bad dream. If anyone asks remember...Jesse is a friend" and then sing "and yes he is a good friend of mine...but lately somethin's changed..."
              I'm sure Rick Springfield has had this dream but usually wakes up from it in terror.  The greatest writer in the history of the English language once said: "What's in a name? It is neither hand, nor foot, nor any other part belonging to a man." Shakespeare said this in Romeo and Juliet, but at the time when he wrote it "Bill" (one of the shortened forms of the name William) wasn't an annoying note one got for services rendered at the end of a month, and it certainly wasn't a song in which the lovely Marilyn McCoo was asking him to her.  Had either been true he might have thought twice about the use of the brilliant phrase.

            Being the muse for a brilliant musician or even a mediocre one has to be quite the compliment, but if you just happen to share a name with someone about whom a song is written and that song becomes a huge hit,  it can be more annoying than those tiny lose hairs that always seem to be on your neck after you get a haircut. When Beethoven wrote "Fur Elise" (whose name was Therese by the way) you have to know she was flattered, but how many women named Elise have wanted to bludgeon the genius for having written it?

Doubt me? Find any woman who grew up in the 1970s named Caroline and serenade her with the Neil Diamond classic which bears her name. If she doesn't lunge at you with murderous intent consider yourself lucky. Neil Diamond probably has round the clock security simply to protect himself from women named Caroline.  The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson probably could wall paper his Malibu home with copies of the restraining orders he's had to get against women named "Barbara Ann" who want to take his hand and punch him in the face with it while asking "Why ya hittin' yourself? Why ya hittin' yourself?" They might want to see him "rockin' and a rollin' " and even "rockin' and a reelin' " down the hill his house sits on into the Pacific. Who knows one of them might have so much "Fun, Fun Fun" she'll drive off in a T-bird till LAPD takes it away. Yes those were horrible puns. I regret nothing.
 
        Ask any woman named Janie if she's "Got a gun". Stephen Tyler is smart enough NOT to do so. Women named "Nikki" don't like to be told how "Darling" they are. Women named "Layla" don't like to be told that you've got them on their knees. conversely women named "Donna" and "Peggy Sue" would most likely be sending hate mail to rock and roll legends Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holley and while Micheal Jackson was one of his generations greatest entertainers women named Billie Jean probably used to throw things at him in airports. Have women named "Lucille" or known as "Long Tall Sally" stopped wanting to assault Architect of Rock and Roll Little Richard? Hell your given name doesn't even have to be IN a some for someone to annoy you with it.  Don't believe me? Sing the song "Tomorrow" from the musical Annie to ANY woman named Tamara and replace the title of the song with her name.

        Lest you think everyone whose name is used in a song is annoyed by it, I've never met any woman named Angela who didn't love David Bowie's tribute to his wife "Angie" as she was leaving him as sang by his friend Mick Jagger.  Peter Chris' (formerly the drummer of KISS) wife "Beth" still hasn't dumped him despite having written one of the most ANNOYING ballads in the history of music about her circa 1970 something.  Most women named "Bernadette" love the Four Tops song which bears their name and there are women named "Michelle" who adore the Beatles song which bears their name.

        Before you call the FBI and tell 80s Australian actor/singer Rick Springfield that  kabal of guys named Jesse are hunting him down, I'm kidding! Most of us mean Rick no harm, except maybe guys named "Bruce" who hated being immortalized in his tongue in cheek song "Bruce" about once having a groupie confuse him for rock legend Bruce Springsteen. Hell I have to admit I actually like the REST of the guy's music.

       To musicians out there who feel inspired to write a song about someone, take a lesson from some of the greats. Carley Simon has YET to tell us the name of the guy who was "So Vain" that he probably thought the song was about him...well wasn't it?  Alanis Moiressette to this day hasn't divulged the name of the guy to whom she gave fellatio in a theatre. Dave Coulier from the 90s sitcom Full House claims it was him and truthfully if I'd dated Alanis Moiressette before that song was written I'd probably say it was about me. Wouldn't you? Jim Morrison died without telling us the name of the girl to whom he walked up and proclaimed "Hello I love You."  Who was the "Lady" Lionel Ritchie sang of? He must have loved her because he wrote a second song about her (with the same title) and let Kenny Rogers sing it. "The Girl from Ipanema" enjoyed relative anonymity as did the "Island Girl" of whom Elton John sang.
       At the end of the day, those of us who have been inadvertently immortalized by song writers consider ourselves somewhat fortunate.  Somewhere out there is a guy named Fong who would love to hear his name in a song. Don't worry Fong my man, some love struck girl is probably immortalizing you as you read this. Hope her song's a hit.