Adam Schlesinger: Five Essential Songs

1. “Sick Day”

A beautifully melancholic ode to a girl taking the PATH train into Manhattan, from Fountains of Wayne’s 1996 debut.

2. “That Thing You Do!”

The hardest assignment conceivable: “Write a hit in the precise idiom of an American garage band in 1964.” Schlesinger aced it.

3. “Utopia Parkway”

The title song to Fountains’ 1999 LP is a bittersweet pop nugget sung by an aimless dude in a cover band.

4. “Hackensack”

This 2003 tale of a deluded Jersey nobody is so poignant you can feel it in the base of your spine.

5. “I-95”

A slo-mo ballad full of literary detail, this 2007 album cut is one of the sweetest love songs in all of alt-rock.