Remembering Adam Schlesinger with the creators, songwriters, and cast ofCrazy Ex-Girlfriend.
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By the time it ended last year,Crazy Ex-Girlfriendhad gifted 157 songs to the world.
Yesterday I was mourning him as a friend.
Today Im mourning him as a creative partner.
What he and Jack and I did was so special.
It just putsCrazy Exin this new light.
In every culture throughout human history, you mourn as a group.
I really would and I cant.
He had so many more songs to write and so much creativity and things to say.
I cant think of anyone else who had all the skills he had.
I was a fan of his even before I started working with him.
I was just floored that Adam would want to do our show.
It was so on the nose.
This week has just felt so on the nose, bringing new life into this world and losing another.
I mean, I have notes.
Its just too fucking obvious.
If this was a screenplay, Id be like,that would not happen.
This whole thing is fucking nuts and it completely shades in intense ways the wholeCrazy Exexperience.
Every photo, every video, I cant watch anything that has Adam on it.
ForCrazy Ex, I first reached out to him when we did the Showtime pilot.
They met and they just really hit it off …
He loved Rachels music and what she did right from the beginning, and he really got it.
What he did exactly was a learning process for me.
Theyre all very generous collaborators and I, as the showrunner, was the tiebreaker.
He was really bowled over by the amount of songs that we were doing.
He always sang that live, so I think about it as an Adam song.
ForGetting Biwe were so exhausted.
And we needed a song to go there.
We wanted to be really sensitive about that subject.
[Then] I had a conversation with Adam on the phone.
And that song has meant so much to so many people.
Its really one of the great live songs that everybody loves.
I would always venture to get him to soak up the glory more.
Like when we would shoot the music videos, I would tell him to come to set.
He didnt really want to do that.
He was an interesting combination of being very shy and very social.
He had a ton of friends.
But he was soft-spoken and really loved his daughters.
He was extremely thoughtful.
And he got me a certificate but he didnt tell me I was getting it.
And I sent him a text, and I asked, What is this amazing certificate you gave me?
And he said, They sent me a form to order some certificates.
So you got one.
Sorry I did not include my actual Emmy.
And then he put a little trophy emoji.
That was really, really, really thoughtful.
He was always very grateful for the opportunity.
He loved the show.
As hard of work it was, he really loved it.
I know who that is!
She asked me if I thought he would be a good addition to the show.
He was just like, Yeah, sounds cool.
He didnt have to be cocky.
He wasnt trying to impress anyone or prove anything.
He just did what he did.
And it really worked out for everyone.
Aline and Rachel gave me that chance and that changed my career.
I owe that to Adam being so much better of a music producer than I am.
Rachel and I had been writing songs for a while, and he had such a humble entry point.
He had every reason to be like, Step aside, here comes the big dog.
Right away when we started working together, it just worked creatively.
We made each other laugh.
We would challenge each others ideas to get better.
We all respected each others opinion.
And we fought sometimes.
So if those instincts conflict, sometimes you might dig your heels and get a little stubborn about it.
But we developed a lot of trust.
We got to do it for years and I got a brother out of it, too.
We got to do live shows.
We went to Radio City Music Hall.
I dont think people who care aboutCrazy Exunderstand how much of that was really because of Adam.
Im going to put the guitar down.
Ill just write some lyrics.
Hell come up with a way better chordal structure and, and harmonic, structure than I can.
Im worse at songwriting now because Adam was so good!
Adam was just a superstar at turning a brainstorm into a fully completed song.
It seemed easy the way he did it.
Its very unusual what he was able to do.
He made everyones life easier, but he was sometimes a pain in the ass, too.
He would really dig in his heels and wed go at it.
One person might be an expert at one of those.
But he was just effortless about all of it.
My favorite Adam solo efforts for us were What Itll Be and Gettin Bi.
If Gettin Bi was 20 percent less jokey, it would be a Fountains of Wayne song.
It has the phrasings of the songs he wrote for them.
He loved doing internal rhymes.
Actually, Adam was the rhyme gestapo.
Adam did not like any near rhymes.
He would never let Rachel and I get away with a near rhyme.
It drove us crazy.
He was a very soft person.
He was also very jokey, witty, and cynical.
He and I definitely connected on that level.
When we toured, I was in the band.
I played bass and he played keys or guitar or whatever.
We would trade around a bit.
It was like band camp.
I wouldnt have taken me seriously as a musician but he did.
He just really liked the community of it and he was generous in that way.
He was a really social dude.
Weve been doing it in the ways that we can, but that part is tough.
And I just keep thinking about what hed be saying if he were here.
Pete Gardner (Darryl Whitefeather)
Adam was a made man; he was legitimate.
When I met him, hed already won some Emmys, hed been nominated for an Oscar.
And it gave me license to do the whole rest of the show.
I never wouldve had the courage to do it without that.
But now it wont be the same thing.
The audience liked to play with me.
I would say, Getting and the audience would scream Bi!
And he could see that we were having so much fun doing that.
And it was so cool!
He was such a collaborator.
He wanted to play.
We had an after-party after the first season at my house.
We sang karaoke in my backyard and it was crazy.
And I remember Adam coming up to me, Lets sing something.
And so we started going through the list, and I loved Joe Jackson from the 80s.
And he was like, I love Joe Jackson!
So he and I sang Is She Really Going Out With Him?
in my backyard, and thats when our friendship began.
It really felt special.
A mutual friend introduced us and weve been working together ever since.
I worked with him mostly on the film and TV stuff when he needs a producing partner.
Adam was like the king of writing comedy songs.
In every genre of music.
It was completely collaborative and crazy fun.
Gabrielle Ruiz (Valencia Perez)
I grew up loving the filmThat Thing You Do!
[for which Schlesinger wrote the titular track].
When I met him, I was very starstruck.
It was rewritten and prerecorded with all the women in Adams recording studio in Los Angeles.
I was scared because I didnt want them to cut the song or be an issue for another rewrite.
We were shooting it the next day, and I confided in him.
And he was like, Oh, dont worry, this is Hollywood, just fake it.
Just watch me do it.
He sent me anemailtelling me it looks so good when he saw the final cut.
I was able to do that song with him playing the guitar on theCrazy Ex-Girlfriendlive tour.
He was definitely a bucket list person to work with.
He was a magician in the music industry, he could make any earworm successful.
But he had this really fun and cool energy in the recording studio.
The pressure was never there.
It was an amazing chapter in my life, and Im just devastated.
A post shared by Gabrielle Ruiz (@gabrielleruiz)
