“I-95” (Fountains of Wayne)

Your lonely long-distance dating song of the day is “I-95” by Fountains of Wayne. This track was on the group’s 2007 album, Traffic and Weather, and it means a special something to me and anybody else who has ever been involved in a long-distance relationship.

When I was dating my wife Sherry, around the time this album was released, she lived in Minnesota and I was still living in Indiana. Several times a month I made the 600 mile (one-way) trip out I-74 to I-39, then up to I-90 and finally up US 52 to the Twin Cities—and back again, of course. Sometimes I took I-65 through Chicago (although a shorter route, the typically congested city traffic made it a longer drive) and sometimes I took I-80 across Iowa (a slightly longer route but a nice change of pace, at least in the summertime), but whichever route I took it was always the same rest areas, truck stops, eighteen-wheelers, and exit signs for small towns that I never visited. It got so I could drive the route in my sleep—and it’s possible I sometimes did.

Fountain of Wayne’s “I-95” details a similar journey a guy takes to see the girl he’s dating. The song is as lonely and desolate as the route he drives to consummate his long-distance relationship. The I-95 route in this song was different from but exactly the same as the I-74/I-39/I-90 route I drove back then. Needless to say, I identified.

“I-95” was written by the late Adam Schlesinger, the prolific power pop tunesmith behind Fountain of Wayne’s “Stacy’s Mom,” Josie and the Pussycats’ “Pretend to Be Nice,” The Wonders’ “That Thing You Do!” (from the movie of the same name), and just about all the songs for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. One of the notable aspects of Schlesinger’s writing was his ability to get the small details right — and, often, to focus on those details. That’s evident in “I-95,” which captures the loneliness of the drive and the sameness of the rest stops along the way:

They sell posters of girls washing cars
And unicorns and stars
And Guns and Roses album covers
They’ve got most of
The Barney DVDs
And coffee mugs and tees
That say Virginia is for lovers, but it’s not
‘Round here it’s just for truckers who forgot
To fill up on gasoline
Back up near Aberdeen

Schlesinger always had a way of making the mundane sound majestic; I especially like the “It feels so cinematic” line near the end, followed by the crushing reality of the van that cuts in front of him and spoils his reverie:

Hip hop stations are fading in and out
All I’m receiving now
Is a kick drum mixed with static
Constellations are blinking in the sky
The road is open wide
And it feels so cinematic
‘Til a van
Driven by an elder gentleman
Cuts right in front of me
From then on, that’s all I see

Finally, there’s the chorus, which lays it all out, and why he’s doing it:

It’s a nine hour drive
From me to you
South on I-95 and I’ll
Do it ’til the day that I die
If I need to
Just to see you
Just to see you

My drive was a few hours longer, but I did it and I did it often. I ended up moving up here to Minnesota to be with the woman I loved, but like the protagonist of “I-95,” I would have kept doing it till the day I die, just to see her. Just to see her.

By the way, there’s a connection between yesterday’s song of the day (“Ariel,” by Dean Friedman) and this one. A music critic once said that “Ariel” was “the missing link between The Four Seasons and Fountains of Wayne.” Both that song and this one describe life in New Jersey at a specific point in time in exquisite detail. That’s one of Schlesinger’s gifts.

Traffic and Weather was Fountain of Wayne’s fourth album, building on the huge success of “Stacy’s Mom” and 2003’s Welcome Interstate Managers. The album reached #97 on the Billboard Hot 200 albums chart and Rolling Stone magazine named “I-95” as #54 on the list of the 100 best songs of 2007. Adam Schlesinger, unfortunately, passed away on April 1, 2020, one of the first casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic. His passing was a major loss to the world of music, but we’ll always have his songs, including “I-95.” It’s a great one.