The best new Fountains of Wayne song of late came from the pen of Robbie Fulks, not Chris Collingwood or Adam Schlesinger. Fulks, better known for his own hilarious honky tonk tunes, has a new track available on iTunes called "Fountains of Wayne Hotline." In it, he and his band find themselves in the middle of a pop song with no idea how to proceed. They call the hotline, where a helpful employee talks them through the chorus, and another through the bridge. Fulks offers a spot-on recreation of FOW's signature sound, with big guitars, massed vocals and a "slightly distorted melodic guitar solo."

Fulks explains the genesis of the song on the web site of his label, Yep Roc, and the target of his adoration/deconstruction seems to take it in good spirits, both linking to it on their own web site and offering commentary on the Yep Roc site: "If Robbie Fulks wants to ride someone's coattails, he ought to pick someone more famous than us," writes Schlesinger. "We, for example, cover Britney Spears songs to get attention. But hey, we're still flattered. In fact, we might hire him to write our next album for us."

Real Fulks fans, of which I thought I was one, have known about the tune for a while. It showed up on Fulks' second live set available for download through eMusic.com, from an October 2004 show at the Double Door in Chicago. Anyone checking him out for the first time thanks to this track would be wise to download that entire set, because the live Fulks experience will definitely make you a believer. eMusic offers 50 free tunes when you sign up, so you could download those two discs of music and have enough left over to sample a couple other things.