Driving home tonight, I heard a song for perhaps the 10th or 12h time. I typed part of the lyrics into Google to find the title, and found out it was “Love You Like a Love Song,” by Selena Gomez.

This is a song I hear when my wife leaves the dance station on in my truck. I used to have a problem with this, kinda, but I don’t anymore. I think we are in a producer-driven golden age of dance music; I find many of the songs exciting and edgy.

“Love You Like a Love Song” isn’t one of these, but I did find something about the tune that caught my mind’s Rainman-like attention to patterns that sometimes manifest themselves in RTH posts.

It’s the lyrics. They’re mundane. But they are mundane in a way that has historical precedent in pop music. Take a look at the first two lines:

Every beautiful thought’s been already sung
And I guess right now here’s another one.

This is the sound of someone struggling to write a song, nay, write a HIT SONG. This is a very particular pattern in pop history. My mind leapt to dozens of songs that had this “guess it’s all been done but i need to write a song” genesis, that were then voiced that within the finished product.

I thought of a half-dozen right away. Most weren’t good, but some were very good.

Anyone?