Skip to main content

Robbie Fulks - "Fountains Of Wayne Hotline"

Another from the curiosity department:

I came across this single on iTunes and was immediately intrigued. For one thing, Robbie Fulks appeared on my radar this year with Georgia Hard, a better than decent country throwback album. Also, who what Fountains Of Wayne fan could pass up that title?

Turns out it's basically a metasong, a song about writing a song. That's not especially rare, especially if you're a Weird Al Fan ("This Song Is Just Six Words Long" anyone?). What's so curious is that one can't tell if Fulks is paying tribute to FOW, or deriding them for being formulaic.

The song is broken into three parts. The first is a quiet verse wherein Fulks tells us he's tired of having zero success as a country music writer/performer and needs a new sound. So he calls the Fountains Of Wayne Hotline, a musical advice service. He speaks to Gerald, who tells him to spice up the second verse with a "radical dynamic shift" and a "full band entry."

At this point it basically becomes Fountains Of Wayne song, and Fulks doesn't pull any punches, saying he'll now be "beating these three chords into early middle age." Again, is he making fun of the guys from FOW? From my perspective, they've had relatively little success and don't deserve to be a target, especially with so many truly crappy bands out there making it big (sorry Nickelback fans).

After an announced "slightly distorted melodic guitar solo" Fulks calls the hotline again and this time gets Grant, a Jack Nicholson soundalike who works in the Department Of Bridges And Infrastructure. Fulks gets technical on us, describing the chords and textual variations he's used in the song so far. Grant suggests that he keep the same chords, and "slather the whole hell out of the thing with a semi-ironic Beach Boys vocal pad."

That's just what Fulks does. And it's pretty thrilling. If he really is making the point that this is just a formula and anyone could do it, then why does he make it sound so good?!

On the Yep Roc website, Fulks claims that the single was done out of admiration, and the Fountains Of Wayne website is even promoting the song! But I think there's something else bubbling underneath. We may never know the true story.

Album: Single Only
Fave Moment: The harmonies on the line: "turn my muddy waters into sweet Mexican wine."

Comments

Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
4:59 PM
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
12:12 AM
Carmamma said…
Funny about this song- I saw the press release which included a quote from FOW- their reaction to this song was sort of smug. I thought they would be more flattered that Fulks nailed their sound so well, but instead, they sounded like a bunch of ingrates...
Still love FOW though...
12:47 AM
Anonymous said…
guitar music read.

Learning guitar music read is no trickier than reading 12 phone numbers.
6:00 AM
Robert Cass said…
I'd guess that Fulks is a fan of FOW but gets frustrated when they rely on their formula instead of branching out, which is how I feel about Ben Folds quite often.
1:25 PM
Anonymous said…
My local college radio station used to play this song. I actually thought it was by Fountains of Wayne.
8:30 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Honoring the Legacy of REO Speedwagon

I suppose I should have known the saga of REO Speedwagon couldn't end with a whimper. Before I get into the latest developments, here's a brief review of what's happened so far: In September 2024 came the announcement that the band was effectively breaking up at the end of the year. Apparently, frontman Kevin Cronin ruled that bassist Bruce Hall was no longer fit to continue touring following back surgery in summer 2024. Hall felt otherwise. Here we learned that REO had essentially become a three-way partnership between Cronin, Hall, and Doughty (who retired from touring in January 2023) following the departure of original members Alan Gratzer and Gary Richrath in 1988. Doughty sided with Hall, so Cronin was outvoted 2-1. No Bruce Hall, no REO Speedwagon. In December 2024 Cronin revealed he would continue performing REO Speedwagon songs with the two musicians who replaced Doughty and Hall, as well as Brian Hitt and Dave Amato (who replaced Gratzer and Richrath), with the on...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Unlikely Musical Life of Tom Kelly

You may not know the name Tom Kelly, but I guarantee that you've sung along to songs he wrote.  Born in West Lafayette, Indiana in 1952, Tom moved to Effingham, Illinois when he was 11 years old, just in time to witness the Beatles' debut on Ed Sullivan. Bit by the rock music bug, he joined a local band called the Trifaris, singing and playing bass. His family moved back to Indiana in '66. When Tom finished high school, he decided to go to college in Illinois, but his choice was made based on extracurricular factors, not academic ones. "I started at Eastern [Illinois University] because there was a band,” he told the Effingham Daily News in 2011, “Then I transferred to Southern [Illinois University] because there was another band.”  Champaign, Illinois  Continuing his college hopping, Tom headed closer to home to attend Purdue, and there he had a group called The Gaping Huggers, comprised of former fellow Trifari JC Marshall on drums, and University of Illino...
Post a Comment
Read more

Billy Joel: Cold Spring Harbor (1971)

We started at the end, and now we finish at the beginning.  Billy Joel's first solo album has a reputation as a sort of curiousity in his catalog. For one, it was quite hard to find for a long while, as it was initually released on a small label called Family Productions and was very spottily distributed. Another bit of intrigue was that the album was initially mastered at the wrong speed, with the main effect being Billy's vocals - which were already much higher-pitched than what we'd become used to - being pitched up to near Alvin and the Chipmunks levels. In 1983, with Billy at the height of his commerical success, the album was remixed, and given some overdubs and edits. That stands today as the "offical" version, though neither the fans nor Billy himself are happy with it. So I suppose a caveat to this entire review is that Cold Spring Harbor is not the album it was intended to be. That said, I'm going to attempt to take it at face value, using the widel...
Post a Comment
Read more