{"id":29948,"date":"2025-09-25T05:30:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T09:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=29948"},"modified":"2026-05-25T11:05:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T15:05:39","slug":"that-thing-you-didnt-do-part-1-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/25\/that-thing-you-didnt-do-part-1-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"That Thing You (Didn\u2019t) Do, Part 1 of 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

The search for a movie\u2019s theme song: Director Tom Hanks\u2019 love letter to \u201860s rock drew upon top songwriters<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A shorter edit of this feature appeared previously in <\/i>SPIN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Tom Hanks made his directorial debut with 1996\u2019s That Thing You Do!<\/i>, the fictional saga of an American one-hit wonder rock band. Adam Schlesinger\u2019s title song is the musical centerpiece of that film. It\u2019s a note-perfect tune that captures the exuberance and zeitgeist of the era, all in a tidy two minutes and 43 seconds. But Hanks\u2019 choice of the song by Fountains of Wayne guitarist Schlesinger came only after a lengthy search for the ideal track. Some 30 years on, nobody\u2019s quite sure how many songwriters took up the challenge and sent in a song of their own. But what is known is that some of the era\u2019s top talent took a crack at it, and the results show that Schlesinger bested some worthy competition. Here\u2019s a look at eight submissions that didn\u2019t make the cut.<\/p>\n

Marshall Crenshaw \u2013 \u201cAll I Ever Wanted\u201d<\/b>
\nIn addition to a critically-acclaimed career of his own, Marshall Crenshaw sometimes writes with and for other artists. His co-write with Gin Blossoms\u2019 Jesse Valenzuela and Robin Wilson, \u201cTil I Hear it From You\u201d landed on the soundtrack of 1995\u2019s Empire Records<\/i>. Released as a single, it top-tenned in the U.S. So it made sense when a request came to Crenshaw via his then-publisher Bug Music, asking for a song for Hanks\u2019 upcoming movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe music supervisor told me that it was a movie about \u201860s rock and roll,\u201d Crenshaw recalls, \u201cand that they really wanted it to be period-correct.\u201d He had co-written a song with British chanteuse Kirsty MacColl called \u201cAll I Ever Wanted,\u201d but he wasn\u2019t sure it was a good fit. \u201cKirsty had some lyrics in there about having a hangover,\u201d he says with a chuckle. But he went to the trouble of making a new demo, and sent it in. \u201cThey said something nice back, like, \u2018Thanks, but it\u2019s not exactly right,\u2019\u201d Crenshaw recalls. \u201cI didn\u2019t follow up after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crenshaw saw That Thing You Do!<\/i> when it opened in theaters. \u201cAnd I absolutely loved it,\u201d he emphasizes. \u201cAnd then I felt bad; I should have tried. So I made a vow that the next time [a similar opportunity] came along, I would try hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

It did, and he did. The result was the award-winning title track from the soundtrack of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story<\/i>. Meanwhile, Crenshaw\u2019s demo of \u201cAll I Ever Wanted\u201d has never been released, but a version by MacColl is on her 1991 album Electric Landlady<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Posies \u2013 \u201cAsk Anybody\u201d<\/b>
\nSinger and multi-instrumentalist Jon Auer recalls receiving a message from The Posies\u2019 record label while the band was on tour in Europe. \u201cThe call went out,\u201d he says. \u201cThey needed it yesterday.\u201d The band\u2019s songwriters quickly came up with \u201cAsk Anybody.\u201d Auer says that The Posies were quite busy at the time, \u201cbut we wanted a shot at the prize, so we found a way to make it work.\u201d They cut a demo in a 32-track Paris studio and sent in a tape.<\/p>\n

\u201cOurs was good, but it didn\u2019t come close to capturing the spirit of the movie,\u201d Auer says. \u201cAsk Anybody\u201d never surfaced as a Posies tune. But the upbeat tune surfaced again \u2013 likely with some lyrical changes \u2013 as the B-side of a 1996 White Flag single and as the title track on a 1998 album by Florida power pop group Swirl 360.<\/p>\n

XTC \u2013 \u201cMy Train is Coming\u201d<\/b>
\nXTC\u2019s primary songwriter Andy Partridge would seem an ideal source for a song evoking the \u201860s. The Swindon, England band had already proven themselves masters of such creative pursuits via their pseudonymous side project The Dukes of Stratosphear. So it was that Partridge was invited to submit an entry for Hanks\u2019 then-untitled project.<\/p>\n

Partridge provided the back story in the sleeve notes for his XTC-related odd \u2018n\u2019 sods releases, The Bull With the Golden Guts<\/i> and Fuzzy Warbles Volume Three<\/i>. He explained that \u201cMy Train is Coming\u201d was originally written for the 1998 comedy film Buster<\/i>, starring Phil Collins. The drummer-singer-actor rejected it, so not long thereafter, Partridge decided to try again. \u201cWhen I was asked did I have an early \u201860s-ish type song for the film That Thing You Do<\/i>? I could supply them with this to throw back in my face,\u201d he wrote, adding, \u201cRejection makes me stronger.\u201d The Merseybeat-flavored tune would be re-recorded live in the studio (with ace guitarist Mike Keneally) and eventually appeared on the 2015 Blu-ray reissue of XTC\u2019s Oranges and Lemons<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Robyn Hitchcock \u2013 \u201cThat Thing You Do\u201d<\/b>
\nA true original, Hitchcock is renowned for his witty and surrealist lyricism. In the mid 1990s, director Johnathan Demme made Storefront Hitchcock<\/i>, a documentary\/concert film about the London-born songwriter.<\/p>\n

Hitchcock recalls that not long after, Demme called him. He can\u2019t recall if he saw a script, but he understood the brief: \u201cWrite a sort of exuberant, 1964-type pop song.\u201d He decided to give it a go, though doing so was out of character for him. \u201cI don\u2019t consciously write songs for other people,\u201d he says. Today Hitchcock isn\u2019t sure where his copy of the unreleased demo is. \u201cIt was just snappy and short,\u201d he says, \u201ca bit like \u2018To Be Alone With You\u2019 by Bob Dylan, throwing the title into the first line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike most of the other songwriters submitting tunes, he actually met the director in person. \u201cI had a three-minute meeting with Tom Hanks somewhere,\u201d Hitchcock recalls. \u201cHe was very nice, saying, \u2018Thanks for the groovy tune.\u2019\u201d He shrugs about the entire brief experience. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a lost masterpiece or anything,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I enjoyed doing it. It was fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The search for a movie\u2019s theme song: Director Tom Hanks\u2019 love letter to \u201860s rock drew upon top songwriters A shorter edit of this feature appeared previously in SPIN. Tom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29953,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,41,51,62,70],"tags":[735,1412,1719,2452,2137,5759,5760,2197,2806,2407],"class_list":["post-29948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-garage","category-interview","category-pop","category-rawk","category-soundtrack","tag-dwight-twilley","tag-marshall-crenshaw","tag-posies","tag-robyn-hitchcock","tag-that-thing-you-do","tag-the-verve-pipe","tag-the-wonders","tag-they-might-be-giants","tag-velvet-crush","tag-xtc","cat-33-id","cat-41-id","cat-51-id","cat-62-id","cat-70-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29948"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31583,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29948\/revisions\/31583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}