C or D: Middle Of The Road by the Pretenders

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I owned the Learning to Crawl album when it came out, and i more or less liked it, but always had the feeling the band was already in decline. Back On The Chain gang & My City Was Gone were good, but recorded before the album sessions. Anyway, I heard Middle Of The Road today and was reminded that i never much cared for this song. Sort of hamfisted beat, plus the "OMG i'm becoming middle aged" lyric (clue to rockstars - this has been done to death, and never is that interesting anyway). And the annoying "ooh ooh oh ooh oohs" Also, she says "bloody" which i hate coming from Americans (but maybe she earned it by living in the UK for 10-12 years by that point)Song almost redeemed by that countdown bit she does near the end, but overall, snooze.

Second record was routinely seen as disappointment, and third a return to form, i would think II has aged much better, maybe i'm way off....

― timmy tannin (pompous), Tuesday, 12 September 2006 02:03 (nineteen years ago)

II definitely has the greater highpoints. this song is not one of my favourite tracks of theirs. i don't much care for any of the singles from LTC save for 'chain gang'..

― electric sound of jim [and why not] (electricsound), Tuesday, 12 September 2006 02:09 (nineteen years ago)

II was only a disappoint compared to I; I'm more likely to put on II than Learning to Crawl.

"Middle of the Road" has held up better than "Chain Gang" or "My City" to my taste.

― Hideous Lump (Hideous Lump), Tuesday, 12 September 2006 02:15 (nineteen years ago)

my main problem with those 2 songs is that they haved been played to death, but objectively, and at the time, they were pretty good

― timmy tannin (pompous), Tuesday, 12 September 2006 02:18 (nineteen years ago)

she's got a kid, she's 33, baby. funny how 33 used to = middle-aged. funny how it probably still does for a lot of people. but i have a sense that having a kid and being in your early 30s was a differentiator then in a way that it isn't really now. or maybe it only becomes a differentiator if you choose to sing about it. or something.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Tuesday, 12 September 2006 02:23 (nineteen years ago)

so good the white stripes basically covered it.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 12 September 2006 02:27 (nineteen years ago)

I like it. I think "bloody third world" is a clever lyric because it could be literal instead of an anglicism, or maybe not.

― Danny Aioli (Rock Hardy), Tuesday, 12 September 2006 02:38 (nineteen years ago)

There is nothing wrong with this song at all except for the fact that radio has played it too many times.

― I am not Ted Nugent (Bimble...), Tuesday, 12 September 2006 04:11 (nineteen years ago)

Incredible rant of a song. I'll never tire of hearing Chrissie whip out that harp mid-meow. And the solo itself! Ah, 1984...

(Timmy, what's your opinion of Canadians who use the word "bloody"? I've been saying it myself for years.)

― Monty Von Byonga (Monty Von Byonga), Tuesday, 12 September 2006 07:29 (nineteen years ago)

canadians are ok, they tend to be halfway to britishy anyway

― timmy tannin (pompous), Tuesday, 12 September 2006 13:14 (nineteen years ago)

This is a great, great song. Always has been and always will be.

The guitar figure in "Chain Gang" rocketh my world also.

Together they walk all over anything else by the band, including "Brass in Pocket" and "My City Was Gone."

Fair point that both were overplayed on the radio, but for me that was nigh on 25 years ago. 81? 82? 83? I've gotten over it. Are they still overplayed? I wouldn't know.

― The Mad Puffin (The Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 12 September 2006 16:17 (nineteen years ago)

the song would be vastly improved by changing the lyric to "I'm standing in the middle of life with my pants behind me"...

― hank (hank s), Tuesday, 12 September 2006 16:24 (nineteen years ago)

You wouldn't know the band was in decline from their performance on this song. Very classic. Ace chord change after the first guitar solo too.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 12 September 2006 17:05 (nineteen years ago)

Ace chord change after the first guitar solo too.

That part always reminded me of the clip in The Kids Are Alright of a 1969/1970-era Who performance where Townshend is in full-destruction mode on "Sparks" or "Underture" and then when you think the whole stage is going to fall-over, he plays some great strummy chords w/o distortion or anything.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Tuesday, 12 September 2006 17:56 (nineteen years ago)

Great song, great execution... it you're tired of it being played to death fair enough, I suppose... Saw her a little while back and she still kicks ass. geezerette or not...

― Bass-man (bassguy), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 03:02 (nineteen years ago)

so good the white stripes basically covered it.

-- hstencil (hstenc!...), September 11th, 2006.

Massively OTM.

― Ash (ashbyman), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 15:12 (nineteen years ago)

i like the christmas one better, but i liked this a lot when iwas a kid . I never thought of the "bloody third world" thing as anything but literal.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 15:16 (nineteen years ago)

The version on the Live Aid DVD is ferocious (so are Chrissie's yellow hot pants).

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 15:30 (nineteen years ago)

I'll never tire of hearing Chrissie whip out that harp mid-meow. And the solo itself!

That's, for me, probably the best moment in the entire Pretenders discography... so yeah, CLAZZIK!

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 15:37 (nineteen years ago)

four months pass...

heard this again the other day, my opinion hasn't changed. it really is one of the dullest "oldies" i hear on a semi-frequent basis. maybe it's just that i'd rather hear any song off the debut, and a few off II, before I hear anything from Learning To Crawl. i guess i may have been wrong about that "bloody" business tho :-/

― timmy tannin (pompous), Thursday, 1 February 2007 07:39 (nineteen years ago)

thirteen years pass...

Yes, indeed!

― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 27 December 2020 05:17 (five years ago)

get in the road

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, 27 December 2020 05:19 (five years ago)

Does anyone remember when MTV premiered this song with all the hoopla about the "new" Pretenders, but instead of the video they first showed the band doing a live in the studio performance of it? I still somehow imagine this song being played live whenever I hear it.

― Josefa, Sunday, 27 December 2020 14:27 (five years ago)

Rings a bell but can’t say I actually remember it.

― And Then There’s Maudit (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 27 December 2020 19:29 (five years ago)

I lived through the era when this was on the radio a lot and that was not enough to dampen the fiery greatness of this track. Alfred's writeup makes me tempted to post a T/S between this and "The Future's So Bright (I've Got To Wear Shades)" though I am on Chrissie's side here of course.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Sunday, 27 December 2020 19:51 (five years ago)

Is this the "Wo ohh oh oh, wo oh" one?

― Mark G, Sunday, 27 December 2020 23:33 (five years ago)

In which case, true but then there was the kicking riff of "Day after day" to come

― Mark G, Sunday, 27 December 2020 23:34 (five years ago)

Just checked, and I'm wrong about "Day after day" coming after.

Blimey, I thought they were solid top twenty around this time, but 81?

And 49 for "Day after day"

― Mark G, Sunday, 27 December 2020 23:40 (five years ago)

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