Following the release of Clarity in 1999, Arizona quartet Jimmy Eat World were dropped by Capitol. Then, after a brief European tour and a disagreement with their management, they were free agents and in charge of their own business decisions.
"[The label] really didn't believe in us," remembers Zach Lind in an interview with Modern Drummer. "But in a way, that was sort of a good thing, because it let us take control of what we needed to do. We learned we had to do it ourselves, because no one else would do it for us."
Life on a major label in the prosperous 90s took a sharp turn and the four took jobs to fund their next recording. Frontman Jim Adkins sold art supplies, Lind was a driver at a car dealership, while guitarist Tom Linton worked on a building site.
"Oh, man, I was so poor. I was dying," Linton told Phoenix New Times. "I don't even know how I made it. For like almost two years I was totally broke. I was just barely scraping by."
Step forward Drive Like Jehu drummer Mark Trombino, who'd previously produced their albums Static Prevails and Clarity, and offered to work for free and get paid later on.
The songs on their fourth studio album were more direct and full of vim and vigour. And hooks? Like a fisherman's hut. The band were snapped up by Dreamworks, and the subsequent album was titled Bleed American.
It was on record shelves for barely four months. Then on the morning of September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked several aeroplanes and flew them directly into the World Trade Center towers in New York and one into the Pentagon, just outside Washington DC and sparked a war in Afghanistan and later in Iraq.
Many bands altered either artwork, track listing or even their names in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. New Zealand's Shihad – which some felt was too close to 'jihad' – changed their monicker to Pacifier, while the unfortunate synth-pop duo I Am the World Trade Center removed the last two words from their name.
Jimmy Eat World quickly changed Bleed American to Jimmy Eat World – not to be confused with their debut – so it would not be judged as being insensitive. The title track was also renamed Salt Sweat Sugar.
In October 2001, The Middle was selected as the album's second single. It was written during a time of uncertainty when their band was between labels. The inspiration came from an indignant email that landed in the band's AOL inbox.
"We thought we were all being pioneers on Static Prevails because we listed an email address that people could write us at," Adkins told Louder. "That was not a thing in ’96.
"So this person wrote in – I don’t know why they were writing us – but they were just talking about how they felt like they weren’t being accepted by the punk rock kids at their school," he adds. "She wasn’t punk enough for them. It was really weird, because punk is supposed to be inclusive. It’s supposed to be about not caring. It’s supposed to be the opposite of the behaviour that these people were exhibiting."
The song and lyrics were written with such speed and fluidity that the band didn't trust themselves with the finished article. They were suspicious of a song that could done so quickly.
"When a song comes along like that, it tricks you into thinking that it's not working as much as the idea you struggled to complete," Adkins told EW. "In your head, it makes it less valuable. At first, I didn't have much of a high opinion of it."
And while it might be cheesy now, but the chorus offered comfort when the world felt like it might end at any moment: 'Everything, everything will be just fine... Everything, everything will be alright, alright'.
And with the most MTV-friendly video you could imagine, the song reached the top of Billboard's Alternative Airplay and Canada Radio charts, and placing pretty highly almost everywhere else.
I still freak out anytime I hear 'The Middle' or anything we've done on the radio.
Jim Adkins
And over the years, the song has enjoyed bursts of popularity thanks to some very high profile musicians covering the song.
Take Prince, for example. The late musician performed a one-off show at the Avalon in Hollywood as part of an Academy Awards afterparty on February 23, 2009. During a two-hour set, he performed The Middle to the 1250-capacity crowd.
Adkins told the AZ Central: "Hearing that Prince had covered it at whatever afterparty he did or Taylor Swift hand-picking it to use for an Apple commercial? It’s like what?! What is that? I don’t know. I still freak out anytime I hear The Middle or anything we've done, like, on the radio."
The band's relationship with Taylor Swift goes beyond the Apple Music ad mentioned earlier. During her Speak Now World Tour in 2011, she invited Adkins onstage to perform The Middle at the then-Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, Arizona.
“I made a joke at soundcheck about how rising from the middle of the arena in smoke and lights wouldn’t help any more people know who this dude with a guitar was,” he wrote on an Instagram post. “She chose the bridge of the song to stop and get the crowd to make me blush. Yes, she is 100% that awesome of a person you suspect she is.”
It was pretty insane when we saw that Taylor Swift commercial. I couldn’t believe it.
Jim Adkins
And, 15 years later after its initial release, the song and the band's profile was given a further surge of popularity. Swift chose the song herself and is shown singing and dancing along while getting ready to go out in that advert. According to Billboard, it caused a 1,500% rise in global sales for the song.
"It was pretty insane when we saw that Taylor Swift commercial," Adkins told journalist Graham Isador. "We had a heads up it might happen, but I thought I’d believe when I saw it. Then I saw it and I couldn’t believe it. It’s just a huge deal when anybody bothers to spend the time with anything you’ve done and find something in it that they can connect with. For a song like The Middle that’s been out for 15 years? For it to still be finding an audience with people who may not have even been around when that song was released? It’s things like that. The more that we do this, the easier it is to find those things that you appreciate. It doesn’t take much."
Almost 25 years since its release, The Middle remains a perennial fan favourite and has enjoyed almost 1.3 billion streams on Spotify to date. Meanwhile, Bleed American – the album titled was changed back in 2008 – has sold 1.7 million copies in the US alone as of 2026.
Trombino, it's safe to say, got paid.
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