{"id":4756,"date":"2025-08-26T15:00:45","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T15:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/close-but-no-cigar\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T15:00:45","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T15:00:45","slug":"close-but-no-cigar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/close-but-no-cigar\/","title":{"rendered":"CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-529440000.jpg\" width=\"\" height=\"\" alt=\"The Oneders in the 1996 comedy, 'That Thing You Do.&quot; (Credit: Frank Trapper\/Corbis via Getty Images)\"><\/figure>\n<p>Tom Hanks made his directing debut in 1996 with <em>That Thing You Do!<\/em>, a fictional saga of a one-hit-wonder 1960s band punningly called the Wonders. The title song, written by Fountains of Wayne\u2019s Adam Schlesinger, captures the \u201960s zeitgeist in a tidy two minutes and 43 seconds.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But Hanks chose it after a wide audition. Nobody\u2019s sure how many songwriters were asked. Schlesinger bested top competition.<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/08\/police-members-royalty-lawsuit\/\">Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland Sue Sting Over Police Royalties<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/08\/mavis-staples-new-album\/\">Mavis Staples Makes \u2018Beautiful\u2019 Music With Star-Studded Cast<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/08\/crack-that-whip-new-documentary-explores-the-evolution-of-devo\/\">Crack That Whip: New Documentary Explores the Evolution of Devo\u00a0<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>That Thing You Do!<\/em> turns 30 next year, a fine time for Playtone Records to reissue a deluxe-edition soundtrack with the tunes that didn\u2019t make the cut\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marshall Crenshaw <\/strong>\u00a0\u201cAll I Ever Wanted\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\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\u2019d co-written a song with Kirsty MacColl called \u201cAll I Ever Wanted,\u201d but he wasn\u2019t sure it fit. (\u201cKirsty had some lyrics in there about having a hangover,\u201d he chuckles.) So he sent in a new demo. \u201cThey said something nice back, like, \u2018Thanks, but it\u2019s not exactly right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Posies<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cAsk Anybody\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jon Auer recalls getting the invitation while the Posies were touring Europe. They quickly came up with \u201cAsk Anybody.\u201d \u201cWe wanted a shot at the prize,\u201d he says, \u201cso we found a way to make it work.\u201d Auer says that the song was good but admits that \u201cit didn\u2019t come close to capturing the spirit of the movie.\u201d The Posies\u2019 \u201cAsk Anybody\u201d has never surfaced.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>XTC<\/strong> \u00a0 \u201cMy Train is Coming\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Andy Partridge proved he was a master of \u201960s evocation with the XTC offshoot Dukes of Stratosphear, and had previously written \u201cMy Train is Coming\u201d for <em>Buster<\/em>, starring Phil Collins (who rejected it). Partridge tried again. His Merseybeat-flavored song, re-recorded, eventually appeared on the Blu-ray reissue of <em>Oranges &amp; Lemons<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robyn Hitchcock<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThat Thing You Do\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Demme alerted Robyn, whom he\u2019d done a documentary on, to the opportunity. Hitchcock doesn\u2019t recall seeing the script, but understood the brief: \u201cWrite a sort of exuberant, 1964-type pop song.\u201d He did. Nowadays, Hitchcock isn\u2019t sure where his copy of the demo is. \u201cIt was just snappy and short,\u201d he says, \u201ca bit like \u2018To Be Alone with You\u2019 by Bob Dylan.\u201d He doesn\u2019t consider it a \u201clost masterpiece or anything,\u201d but adds, \u201cI enjoyed doing it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Verve Pipe <\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThat Thing You Do\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey wanted a \u201960s sounding thing, which is right up my alley.\u201d says Brian Vander Ark. The song came easily, but Vander Ark thinks he might\u2019ve been one of the last songwriters invited. \u201cMaybe they hadn\u2019t found \u2018the one\u2019 yet,\u201d he says, \u201cand maybe I was on that C-list.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dwight Twilley<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThat Thing You Do\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dwight Twilley, who died in 2023, hit #16 on the charts twice, with \u201cI\u2019m on Fire\u201d (1975) and \u201cGirls\u201d (1984). Dwight\u2019s widow Jan recalls his hearing about the theme from Paramount\u2019s Senior VP of Music. \u201cBut he failed to mention \u2018based on a Beatles-y sound.\u2019\u201d Twilley wrote and delivered his own \u201cThat Thing You Do,\u201d but its moody, minor-key jangle didn\u2019t fit the film\u2019s vibe.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Velvet Crush<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThe Thing That You Do\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Paul Chastain recalls learning of a \u201cnot-quite-open publishing call\u201d during sessions with Mitch Easter for <em>Heavy Changes<\/em>. \u201cWe had the title and knew it was about a band in the \u201960s,\u201d he says, \u201cbut we didn\u2019t have much time to do it. Everything was done in a take or two.\u201d Mitch had a Paul Revere &amp; the Raiders best-of, and its spirit influenced the Crush\u2019s attempt \u2014 a near-ringer for Revere\u2019s \u201cJust like Me.\u201d \u201cOnce I saw the movie,\u201d says Paul, \u201cI was like, \u2018Well, we really missed the mark on that one!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tom Hanks made his directing debut in 1996 with That Thing You Do!, a fictional saga of a one-hit-wonder 1960s band punningly called the Wonders. The title song, written by&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,24,3466,3467],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-pushly","category-that-thing-you-do","category-tom-hanks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}