Remembering Adam Schlesinger
Adam Schlesinger — a prolific songwriter, accomplished musician, and talented collaborator — has died of complications from COVID-19. I have been a fan of his for years, especially from That Thing You Do and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and was deeply affected by this news. I wrote this to try to explain why. Not because I think that my feelings particularly matter but because Schlesinger wrote songs that helped me understand moments and people and myself. That kind of art feels important, especially right now. And because I want to use my voice to honor someone who made things that mattered to me. Judging by the past couple of days on Twitter, a lot of people feel the same way.
Storytelling makes history feel real. It makes the present feel real. But it’s hard. You have to get the fussy bits right (if you care about that sort of thing) and you have to get the feeling right. The two are not the same. Look, for example, to the Tiffany Problem, a term coined by author Jo Walton to describe this particular challenge: Tiffany is actually an accurate medieval name but if you use it in a story it just feels weird and no one will believe you. (St. Chad’s Place in London seemed weird to me for the same reason. Turns out, real guy!)
All this to say that getting a feeling right can be the hardest part of storytelling. Adam Schlesinger was a master of the feeling. It’s why I have loved his songs so much for so long, particularly his work for movies and films. I love soundtrack music because it’s main goal is to make you feel a thing — it doesn’t dance around an issue or pull any punches. Schlesinger was brilliant at this particular art. He wrote songs with a straightforward earnestness and with just enough specificity to make the emotions feel real, to give them weight. He did it so well that the internet is full of people grieving and sharing exactly how much his songs have meant to them, from Twitter reactions to Slate, The Washington Post, NPR, and Rolling Stone. His songs could perfectly capture a moment, an era, a feeling.
Most iconic, at least in my mind, is the titular track from the (excellent) movie That Thing You Do! Written and directed by Tom Hanks, it tells the story of a one-hit-wonder band in the 60s. The whole plot centers around one song so that song had to work. It had to feel like a 60s song, resonate with 90s audiences, and, most importantly, not annoy everybody after they hear it two-dozen times in a two hour window. You have to believe it as a smash hit, that it made a talent show audience get up and dance, that it inspired an army of crazed fans. It’s perfect. That was Schlesinger’s break into writing for film. He co-founded Fountains of Wayne in 1996 and would go on to write many excellent songs for them, as well as write for and play in several other bands. But in 1997 he was not well known — Fountains of Wayne hadn’t built its loyal fan base, hadn’t released it’s biggest hit Stacy’s Mom (which Schlesinger wrote) or its thoughtful and beloved classics like All Kinds of Time and Hackensack. He was picked based solely on the strength of this track — a story he retold in a 2011 interview. And from there he became one of the go-to-guys for when you needed a song that didn’t just fit a story but made the story make sense. Made it better.
Throughout the four seasons of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Schlesinger co-wrote, along with Jack Dolgen and show co-creator and star Rachel Bloom, over one hundred songs. One hundred fifty-seven, to be precise. This show is weird and dark but also thoughtful and full of heart — it only works if it builds empathy between the audience and the characters, especially protagonist Rebecca Bunch. The songs do that work, capturing innermost desires and fears and denials in the way that only songs can. Only good songs can. Schlesinger, Bloom, and Dolgen wrote about therapy and medication and fucked up relationships in absurd but very human ways. They captured, and lovingly mocked, the particularities of endless genres and artists from Disney to Drake. Schlesinger used his ability to evoke specific moods and historical moments, from the 80s jams Let’s Generalize About Men and Don’t Be a Lawyer to the classic crooner style of Sports Analogies and the Marilyn Monroe-inspired Math of Love Triangles (and its hilariously half-hearted reprise). There is so much genuine pathos brought into this show through its music — the device that allows us to see what is in peoples heads and hearts, that allows one character to outright beg another to Settle For Me; captures the hope that, after years of pain and mess, the right Diagnosis can fix everything; and belts your cruellest inner thoughts to an audience who sings along.
The song from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend that means the most to me is also the one I most associate with Schlesinger (in part because he sings the version available on Spotify) — The End of the Movie. This song comes at Rebecca’s low point and manages to be dark, poignant, absurd, and hilarious all at once. It is a narrative device that destroys the concept of narratives — that “real life isn’t a movie” and “doesn’t make narrative sense.” I have listened to it when I am sad, when I am confused, when I want so desperately for things to make sense but they don’t. Because they can’t.
Because that’s not how life works. We are not doing it wrong if we are confused or scared and pretending it all makes sense won’t help anybody. The death of Adam Schlesinger hurts in a particular way because we are in a time of global pain and confusion and because we know, and are terrified to acknowledge, that this deeply felt loss will not be the last. And — as much as I am genuinely gutted that I won’t get anymore stories written by this man, anymore anthems or three-minute snippets of pure joy or windows into my own thoughts that I couldn’t put into words before — those of us who didn’t actually know Adam fear that it won’t be the worst. We don’t know what our lives and our world will look like when this pandemic ends.
In the meantime, I will dance to my favorite Schlesinger songs, the pop-punk perfection of Josie and the Pussycats, the absurdly fun Dreamgirls inspired Dream Ghost from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and, of course, That Thing You Do (another version because it’s just that great). I might cry to the slower songs, like Mexican Wine or Valley Winter Song by Fountains of Wayne, and remember the times that I shared them with friends who I cannot hug right now. I will think of his family and his friends and all the others grieving those that they love. I will remember that real life is, to quote the man himself, “a mess and we’re all going to die,” but that stories and art and songs can help us understand what it all means for as long as we are able to share it with each other. This may sound trite and clumsy and the sentiments feel both too grand and too silly, but I don’t know how to write songs. Adam Schlesinger did. I will always be grateful for the songs he gave us.
