My Top 1000 Songs #734: The Middle

I suppose this one is the epitome of the Guilty Pleasure. I can't say I care for Jimmy Eat World; I think I listened to one of their albums once and quickly decided it wasn't for me. And even this song sort of snuck in; as far as I can remember, I didn't hear it at the time of its 2001 release--rather, the first time I heard it was when my kids, a few years after that, went to rock & roll summer camp, and this is one of the songs they played. And I thought, hey, what a damn catchy song! 

That it worked pretty well when performed by a few preteens learning their instruments is not at all an indictment of the track, BTW. It actually drives home what I like about the tune--a relatively simple, almost dumb, radio-ready guitar pop song, like the stuff I first got into when I was a pre-teen myself (see, e.g., the multiple Sweet songs on this list). Lord knows there just haven't been enough of these in recent decades.

Anyway, the song ended up in my digital library (the original, not my kids' cover version), and every now and then I'll play it when nobody's watching and think, yep, definitely a damn catchy song.

 The kids (singing & drumming):