Raised in Montclair, New Jersey, Schlesinger grew up worshipping masters of hook writing such as the Beatles and Elvis Costello. Echoes of those greats can be heard loudly across his catalog, as can echoes of his rock contemporaries. The keyboard whine of ’80s new wave and the ka-chunking guitars of ’90s alternative flavored the sound of Fountains of Wayne, the group he started with the songwriter Chris Collingwood in 1995. The vibe of his other band, Ivy—formed in the early ’90s with the musicians Dominique Durand and Andy Chase—trended dreamier and more indie. Its oblique lyrical approach was unusual compared with the rest of Schlesinger’s catalog, but the referential refrain of Ivy’s debut album’s opening song feels very him: “I just can’t get enough.”

Most of Schlesinger’s writing prized people, places, and things. “For better or worse, my songs aren’t usually that abstract,” he wrote in 2013. “Maybe it’s because I never did enough drugs.” You can accordingly flip through Fountains of Wayne albums and find vignettes in which the image conjured is as vivid as the wordplay it’s conjured with. Often he told road stories, peppered with interstates and outlets (the band’s name and album titles made the motif explicit). Here’s how the title character of 1999’s “Denise” was introduced: “She drives a lavender Lexus / She lives in Queens, but her dad lives in Texas.” The song’s synths and handclaps are so manically gung ho that they merit comparison to a sweet, sticky something more potent than bubblegum. Jell-O shots, maybe. Or a congealed energy drink.

Again and again, Schlesinger tinkered with that same juxtaposition of ecstatic feelings and common life. The breezy “Hey Julie” in 2003 opened with a Dilbert-like confession: “Working all day for a mean little man / with a clip-on tie and a rub-on tan.” As the chorus neared, the clock struck five and the narrator could head home for a back rub. “Bright Future in Sales” told of some poor lout nursing a hangover at the Port Authority Bus Terminal while imagining a happier tomorrow enabled by a brand-new computer. Was the song’s jaunty sound jeering at this guy, or sympathizing with him? Was the point the fervor of his aspirations, or the smallness of them? All of the above. Schlesinger celebrated the momentary pleasures that make the bleak rat race bearable, but he also flipped a middle finger at the rat race itself.

Schlesinger’s show-biz collaborations retained that sense of humanity. Awards ceremonies, commercials, movies, and TV programs all made use of his talents—and the personality-packed results ennobled the term work for hire. There’s nothing hackneyed or rote about his delirious odes to mental illness for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Nor is there about the satirical show tune “TV Is a Vast Wonderland,” which Jane Lynch opened the Emmys with in 2011. Even the fact that Schlesinger co-wrote the theme song for SNL’s “The Ambiguously Gay Duo” seems to fit with his long-running motifs. In almost every case, he used the magic of pop—whether filtered through the tropes of vaudeville, British invasion, or anything else he deftly channeled—to show how the quotidian can feel superheroic for a minute or three.

One of the clearest distillations of this approach is also one of the most famous. On “Stacy’s Mom,” guitar whams and screaming synths cheer on a teenage boy lusting after an adult woman. The lyrics and the video are chockablock with suburban Americana signifiers: lawns, pools, divorce. Stacy’s mom does not seem to return the singer’s affections, and that’s just fine. It’s in the wanting, not the getting, that the American dream lives.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.