Stealers Wheel – Stuck In The Middle With You

When I first heard this 1973 song I would have sworn it was Bob Dylan. The song peaked at #6 in the Billboard 100, #8 in the UK and #2 in Canada. Gerry Rafferty is singing the lead vocal with bandmate Joe Egan harmonizing with him. The two wrote the song.

Quentin Tarantino used this song in a horrific torture scene in Reservoir Dogs to great effect.

From Songfacts.

Also known simply as “Stuck In The Middle,” this Stealers Wheel classic was co-written by the group’s guitarist Gerry Rafferty and keyboard player Joe Egan.

In his obituary of Rafferty for the January 5, 2011 issue of the Daily Telegraph, Martin Chilton said of this song that it was “Written as a parody of Bob Dylan’s paranoia, it ridiculed a music industry cocktail party, with the lyrics:

Clowns to the left of me
jokers to the right
here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

To Rafferty’s utter disbelief his parody, composed as little more than a joke but with a catchy Pop arrangement, struck gold, selling more than a million copies. The song reached a new generation of listeners when Quentin Tarantino used it in the notorious ear-slicing scene in his 1992 movie Reservoir Dogs.”

Commenting to the BBC shortly after Rafferty’s death, music industry pundit Paul Gambaccini echoed Chilton’s sentiments about the song.

 

Stuck in the Middle with You