Stuck in the Middle with You

"Stuck in the Middle with You"
Single by Stealers Wheel
from the album Stealers Wheel
B-side "Jose"
Released 27 April 1973
Recorded Apple Studio, London
Genre Folk rock, country rock, soft rock[1]
Length 3:23
Label A&M
Songwriter(s)

"Stuck in the Middle with You"[2][3][4] (sometimes known as "Stuck in the Middle")[5] is a song written by Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan and originally performed by their band Stealers Wheel.

Overview

"Stuck in the Middle" was released on Stealers Wheel's 1972 eponymous debut album.[6] Gerry Rafferty provided the lead vocals, with Joe Egan singing harmony. It was produced by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.[7] Rafferty's lyrics are a dismissive tale of a music industry cocktail party written and performed as a pastiche of Bob Dylan.[8]

The band was surprised by the single's chart success.[8] The single sold over one million copies, eventually peaking at number 6 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, number 8 in the UK, and number 2 in Canada.[9]

The band appeared playing the song on BBC's Top of the Pops on 18 May 1973.[10]

Music video

The video portrays the band performing in a corner of a large, empty building. Their performance is intercut with shots of Egan (who is miming to the by-then-departed Rafferty's vocal track, although Gerry Rafferty did not die until January, 2011) at a small banquet table with a number of garishly-dressed and made-up supper guests. These include an actual clown, a bespectacled bowler-hatted gent devouring spaghetti and a lavishly dressed woman eating cream cakes and grapes. The clown, who has difficulty eating a plastic chicken, continually squeezes Egan out whenever he tries to take food from the table. The guitar solo is played on a guitar played flat with an empty beer bottle used as a slide. Eventually, the other band members appear, driving off the strange characters so that Egan can sit down at last.

Personnel

Source: [11]

Chart performance

Leif Garrett released a version of the song on his 1980 album, Can't Explain.[17]

The song is used in Quentin Tarantino's 1992 debut film Reservoir Dogs, during the scene in which the character Mr. Blonde (played by Michael Madsen) taunts and tortures bound policeman Marvin Nash (Kirk Baltz) while singing and dancing to the song.[18] In an interview with Rolling Stone, Tarantino recalled

"That was one of those things where I thought [the song] would work really well, and [during] auditions, I told the actors that I wanted them to do the torture scene, and I'm gonna use 'Stuck in the Middle With You,' but they could pick anything they wanted, they didn't have to use that song. And a couple people picked another one, but almost everyone came in with 'Stuck in the Middle With You,' and they were saying that they tried to come up with something else, but that's the one. The first time somebody actually did the torture scene to that song, the guy didn't even have a great audition, but it was like watching the movie. I was thinking, 'Oh my God, this is gonna be awesome!' "[19]

American baroque pop band San Fermin performed a version of the song in July 2015 for The A.V. Club's A.V. Undercover series.[20]

In one episode of the show "Malcolm in the Middle", Hal is shown listening to the song on a record as various events occur around him.

A cover by Grace Potter is the opening theme of Netflix series Grace & Frankie.

In an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia titled "Charlie Catches a Leprechaun," Charlie re-enacts the scene from Reservoir Dogs in the basement while the song plays.

An episode of Supernatural is titled "Stuck in the Middle (With You)," in which the characters re-enact a scene from Reservoir Dogs.

References

  1. ↑ Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion; Brought to You by the Makers of Mojo Magazine. Canongate. 2007. pp. 399–. ISBN 978-1-84195-973-3.
  2. ↑ Whitburn, Joel (2003). Top Pop Singles 1955-2002 (1st ed.). Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin: Record Research Inc. p. 675. ISBN 0-89820-155-1.
  3. ↑ Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 527. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.
  4. ↑ "Stealers Wheel sleeve image" (JPG). Strawbsweb.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-06-24.
  5. ↑ "Stealers Wheel". Amazon.com. 1 March 2004. Retrieved 25 June 2016 – via Amazon.
  6. ↑ "You searched for album_details.php". Gracenote.com. Retrieved 25 June 2016.
  7. ↑ Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era (ISBN 9780670034567): Ken Emerson
  8. 1 2 Chilton, Martin, "Gerry Rafferty and his songs of alienation", Daily Telegraph, 5 January 2011
  9. 1 2 Canada, Library and Archives (17 July 2013). "Image : RPM Weekly". Bac-lac.gc.ca. Retrieved 25 June 2016.
  10. ↑
  11. ↑
  12. ↑ "flavour of new zealand - search listener". Flavourofnz.co.nz. Retrieved 25 June 2016.
  13. ↑ [Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-2002]
  14. ↑ "Adult Contemporary Music Chart - Billboard". Billboard.com. Retrieved 25 June 2016.
  15. ↑ "Australian Chart Book". Austchartbook.com.au. Retrieved 25 June 2016.
  16. ↑ "Top 100 Hits of 1973/Top 100 Songs of 1973". Musicoutfitters.com. Retrieved 25 June 2016.
  17. ↑ "Leif Garrett, Can't Explain". Retrieved December 16, 2016.
  18. ↑ Reynolds, Simon (7 January 2013). "Quentin Tarantino's music moments: 'Stuck in the Middle', David Bowie". Digital Spy. National Magazine Company Ltd. Retrieved 7 April 2014. Alongside the bloody violence and salty dialog, Quentin Tarantino movies are often marked by ingenious juxtaposition of image and sound. Ever since Michael Madsen's razor-wielding Mr Blonde danced to 'Stuck in the Middle With You' in Reservoir Dogs, the filmmaker has become synonymous with memorable musical montages.
  19. ↑ Halperin, Shirley (21 August 2009). "Quentin Tarantino on Five Key Soundtrack Picks, From "Reservoir Dogs" to "Inglourious Basterds"". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 7 April 2014. From Pulp Fiction to Kill Bill to his latest, Inglourious Basterds (opening this weekend), Quentin Tarantino matches scene with song like a sommelier pairs just the right bottle of wine with a nice steak: perfectly. ~. So how does a cut make it from his turntable to the big screen? The revered director filled us in on his method through five key movie music cues.
  20. ↑ Modell, Josh (28 July 2015). "San Fermin covers Stealers Wheel". The A.V. Club. Onion, Inc. Retrieved 28 July 2015.
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