We all know her — and many of us wanted to be her — but no matter our ages, together we can lament the rock’n’roll tale of woe when the man who made Jessie’s Girl famous takes the Weldon Mills Theater stage Friday night.

Australian-American 80s rock icon and film star Rick Springfield will perform a collection of songs from his Working Class Dog days to his current album Automatic, with perhaps a few surprise selections in the mix.

The BarnBurner Promotions team of Julie Powell and Allison Askew booked his show with the audience in mind, knowing fans near and far would gladly fill the seats.

“There’s a saying about Springfield that goes like this: ‘Every woman wanted him and every man wanted to be like him back in the day,’” said Powell. “We’ve had a lot of people who said, ‘I wanted to see him as a teenager and didn’t get to,’ so we’re bringing him in now. We’re going to let you live that one out.”

(Doors open at 5:30 p.m. The show starts at 8 p.m. and tickets are available at the theater via this link)

Amid a career that spans more than four decades – 80s pop music icon, author, actor, producer, husband, dad, even partner in a Beach Bar Rum venture with fellow artist Sammy Hagar — Springfield says it’s all about the music.

“It still comes down to writing a song and recording it,” he said. “I have a new one coming out now that’s called Lose Myself that’s gonna be released in October. It’s a brand new single. I wrote it and recorded it and I just finished the video.”

Springfield’s website describes his current album Automatic that dropped August 4 as “guitar-based power pop and keyboards that lyrically feature his favored subjects of love, sex and death,” noting he strived to make his songs “solid three-minute tunes with the biggest hooks I could come up with.”

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“I put out everything I wrote because I wanted to,” Springfield said of Automatic. “I wrote recorded, wrote recorded … when we finished, we had 20 songs so we put them all on the album. I thought they were all good enough, they all had some kind of merit. I’m happy with it. We play some of the songs live; they work.”

Springfield believes his love of songwriting has inspired his abundance of artistic opportunities. He has shared his music through a multitude of delivery channels — radio, albums, music videos, movies and social media platforms, among others — noting that each strengthened and magnified his work.

He credits 80s music channels MTV and VH1 for launching and amplifying his early music career.

“They were instrumental in my success,” he said. “Music being viewed certainly was a different approach than radio because you got to see the person. Usually, it took a few albums for someone to recognize a new band or new artist. With MTV, it was instantaneous. We had one song and everyone knew what you looked like, they recognized you. It was a powerful thing, very different from radio but very integral.”

But radio, in its modern form, still finds a place, albeit lighthearted, in Springfield’s artistic endeavors, namely through his Working Class DJ show on SiriusXM 80s on 8.

“The radio show … that’s just for a laugh, I don’t really take that (gig) seriously” he said. “It’s just me having fun for half an hour. I don’t have a lot of time to research some of that stuff which is why I sound so clueless. It’s just me goofing off. I love music and I certainly love music from the 80s, it was the last decade of great music.”

An entertainer and performer who enjoys jam sessions on stage, Springfield also delights his fans through touring. Sometimes he hits the road as a soloist as he will do Friday at Weldon Mills Theatre but he also welcomes artist collaborations.

 “We’re going out next summer with a bunch of acts, an ‘I want my 80s’ tour,” he said. “This one is me and a bunch of songs — new and old — and some from the 80s, some from now, some from the last couple of albums, just a lot of different songs. It’s fun for me to play guitar.”