The Story Behind: "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World

The Middle is a song by American pop punk band Jimmy Eat World. The song is was released as the second single from their fourth studio record Bleed American in 2001.  

Backstory

The song was written when the band had left their major label Capitol Record, through which they have released their previous studio album Clarity in 1999. The band left the record company because the sales of their records were too low (only 10,000 copies of their second album Static Prevails sold in 1996), because of low exposure. The singer and guitarist Jim Adkins stated: "We were just about invisible there and it wasn't going to get any better."  

After the band had left, they have decided to record their new album without a label, financing the whole recording of the album themselves. The band challenged themselves by making the music and production simpler in order to spend as little money as possible, since they had to chip in the production of the whole album. Adkins explained: "On our new stuff, rather than challenging ourselves by getting real experimental, we kind of went in the other direction, challenging ourselves by getting very simple." After the recording, the band took their brand new record to DreamWorks Records to sign a deal.  

The Lyrics

The song was very much inspired by the whole ordeal that the band had to go through. Seen in the lyrics »Hey, don't write yourself off yet It's only in your head you feel left out or looked down on. Just try your best, try everything you can. And don't you worry what they tell themselves when you're away.”, it talks about how the band was under a lot of pressure being overlooked by the public and not selling records, but didn’t give up because “It just takes some time” and in the end “Everything, everything will be alright, alright.”  

Release and Music Video

Upon release, The Middle was an instant success and was the reason why the band broke through into the mainstream. In 2002 , the single reached the top of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks Chart, number five on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 26 on the UK Singles Chart.  

The video was directed by Paul Fedor and was released in 2001, receiving a lot of play time on MTV. The story revolves around a clothed boy whom attends a pool party, where everybody at the party is in their underwear, except him and the band playing. The boy goes to a room to strip to be just like the others at the party, only to find girl that is doing the same thing as him. The video ends with the boy and girl leaving the party, with arms around each other.