Jimmy Eat World were feeling pretty good about The Middle when they were recording it, but if you had told them then that the song would become a breakout hit that would later be covered by Taylor Swift and Prince, they would have told you you were out of your mind.
Even today, 25 years on, that’s kind of crazy to think about. The look on Jimmy Eat World frontman/guitarist Jim Adkins face when we ask him what it actually feels like when the world’s biggest pop star covers your song suggests that he still hasn’t quite processed this – or at least there are no words that could possibly do it justice. He had no idea that it was going to connect like it did.
“No, are you kidding me!?” he says. “Oh, it’s still weird. [Laughs] It’s so weird. The Middle was a song that I feel came together pretty easily. There wasn’t a lot of scratching our heads trying to crack the code. Right off the bat, it felt like there’s nothing wrong with it; we’ve just got to take it where it wants to go, and it felt like all the decisions to make it get there were pretty easy.”
Adkins is joining MusicRadar alongside drummer Zach Lind to talk about the making of Bleed American, a conversation you can read in full soon, but we had to ask him about its second single, and its freewheeling guitar solo.
Because, yes, The Middle showcases Adkins’ masterly command of tension and release, the explosive verse/chorus dynamics that make a song work on the radio, in a stadium, and as an anthem of mass appeal. It has all the pop mechanics it needs for Adkins’ melody to get take flight. It has a message, too, written in response to a fan who was getting bullied because her friends didn’t think she was punk enough. But it also has a ripping guitar solo.
“It just got ranked – what? – 75th or 76th best guitar solo of all time by Rolling Stone,” says Lind.
“Yes, thanks!” laughs Adkins.
So, how did it come together?
“Yeah, for guitar solos in general, I’m not the kind of player – like John Mayer – that just instantly can connect the dots without even thinking of where I’m taking something over what scale,” says Adkins. “I stopped studying jazz before all that really clicked.”
Before Jimmy Eat World was a touring concern, Adkins was a jazz guitar student. He also studied classical guitar. In an alternate universe, maybe there’s a Jim Adkins playing conservatoire jazz, or in bow-tie and tux performing recitals. On our timeline, he bundled himself in the back of a van and set off to play punk rock and it worked out okay in the end.
Adkins says he got close to understanding the music theory that could have held all this together, the book smarts that have served Mayer so well. And yet, how he came up with The Middle’s solo – in the studio, with the song all but written and completed – instructs us that you don’t always need to know exactly the theory behind the solo just as long as you have a plan.
Adkins says The Middle was just like any other solo. He had an idea of what he wanted to say with it.
“What I basically do, or what I remember doing, was I wanted to chase a form, and then it was about messing around until something gave me the next idea,” he explains. “So, it was like, ‘Theme, repeat, theme, repeat, escalation, closing with more intensity!’ And it’s about chasing that. Theme, repeat, variation, ascension, escalation… tight ending.
“And that was the form that I was chasing, and then literally just dicking around until something popped out at me, and then doing it again and seeing where that would go from there.”
Adkins cites the influence of Doug Gillard from Guided By Voices. Gillard’s solo on the skronky slacker wheeze I Am A Tree was what Adkins had in mind, and you listen to both tracks back-to-back and you can hear the similarities.
Both have the rolling and tumbling of hammer-ons and pull-offs, though of the two, Adkins’ solo is more white knuckle, with the recognisable twang of the Telecaster giving it a slightly countrified flavour.
“I want to say that that was most likely an American Standard Telecaster into a Fender Champ. That was probably the thing. We discovered that as as you are doing the guitar overdub pyramid, your amps get smaller and smaller by the time it gets on top, so usually a Fender Champ is what most of the solos are on all of our records actually.”
Adkins is one among legions of players – the Stones, Eric Clapton, Don Felder – who have leaned upon the compact Fender amp as their studio pinch-hitter. There’s nothing quite like it.
“Oh yeah. You can make an album with a Champ and a [Shure SM] 57, for sure,” says Adkins. “For Shure! We had just enough [gear] to give us options without A/B’ing for hours.”
And that was it. The Middle was in the can, ready to be mixed and mastered with the rest of the songs. Bleed American was chosen as the lead single, released in August. The Middle was released a couple of months later. The band liked it fine. But maybe it was too easy for them to truly appreciate it.
I feel like, as a musician, songs like that, there’s this thing in your mind that it’s not worth as much to you compared to songs that you had to really struggle with
Jim Adkins
“I feel like, as a musician, songs like that, there’s this thing in your mind that it’s not worth as much to you compared to songs that you had to really struggle with, a creative puzzle and then – all of a sudden – you solved it, and ‘Eureka!’ And it’s like, ‘Oh man, I did it!’” says Adkins. “For some reason, those songs carry more weight, and you forget that a listener doesn’t have any of that, and they’re just going to take it as it’s served, and it was really surprising… We always thought The Middle was a strong song but, I mean, how much it resonated with people is still baffling. It’s still surprising.”
And for the record, it’s number 76 on Rolling Stones’ 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time list, which places it ahead of Steve Vai’s For The Love Of God (80th spot), Megadeth’s Hangar 18 (97th) and John Mayer’s Gravity (85th). Hey, it might tickle Adkins to know that knowing all the theory doesn't matter all of the time.
- Catch Adkins and co live on the Bleed American 25th Anniversary Tour. See Jimmy Eat World for dates and ticket details.
