The Story and Meaning Behind “Stuck in the Middle with You,” Stealers Wheel’s Exciting Hit About a Long, Dull Night

It was a hit when it came out, and it received a big boost from its inclusion in an ultra-cool movie. But many people have no idea what Gerry Rafferty was singing about when he crooned his way through the 1973 classic “Stuck in the Middle with You” off the self-titled debut album for Stealers Wheel.

What is the song about? What inspired Rafferty to write it with his bandmate Joe Egan? And how did it end up in Reservoir Dogs? Well, pardon the Tarantino-related pun, but if you lend us an ear, we’ll provide all the answers.

Wheel of Fortune

Gerry Rafferty was already something of a music industry vet when he got together with Joe Egan, with whom he had grown up in Scotland, to form Stealers Wheel. In addition to a well-regarded solo debut, Rafferty had performed as a member of The Humblebums, a group which also featured future actor and comedian Billy Connolly. Songs like “Mary Skeffington” and “Her Father Didn’t Like Me Anyway” showed off Rafferty’s knack for offbeat catchiness.

With that kind of track record, it’s no surprise that Stealers Wheel drew some attention from record companies when they formed. And it was that attention that indirectly led to Rafferty and Egan composing the band’s most famous song, as Rafferty remembered in an interview with Record Collector:

“We signed a contract with a big American company and they threw a launch party in a chic restaurant in Chelsea. There was a huge table with about 50 people there, record company executives and their wives, and musicians and their wives, and the wine was flowing. It was a boisterous evening, but I was sandwiched between two rather boring label executives and their wives. Two days later, Joe Egan and I sat down and we wrote that song in half an hour.”

Twice a Success

When they first heard the song, many critics thought Stealers Wheel were doing an imitation of Bob Dylan. That wasn’t really the case. Although the songwriters were both influenced by Dylan, there was just a natural similarity in Rafferty’s nasally vocals to Dylan’s timbre.

In any case, the song struck a chord in ’72, hitting the Top 10 in the U.S., UK, and Canada. But for the most part, it wasn’t a song that received as much airplay in subsequent years as other hits from around the same time, perhaps because Stealers Wheel didn’t last very long before splitting up. (Rafferty scored solo success with songs like “Baker Street” and “Right Down the Line.” He passed away in 2011. Egan died on July 6 of this year.)

But the song did have a loyal fan who helped “Stuck in the Middle with You” achieve immortality. When Quentin Tarantino wrote his debut film Reservoir Dogs, released in 1992, he mentioned “Stuck in the Middle with You” in the script as the song that would be playing while a deranged crook (eventually played by Michael Madsen) tortures a victim. Tarantino was working with a limited soundtrack budget, but he was able to get the song at a bargain. The rest is cinema history.

What is the Meaning of “Stuck in the Middle with You”?

Rafferty and Egan capture the uneasiness of a long evening with uncanny accuracy, so much so that the song transcends its initial inspiration and can be appreciated by anyone feeling out of place at a large gathering. At least the narrator has someone to which he can confide his misery: Clowns to the left of me / Jokers to the right / Here I am stuck in the middle with you.

This poor sap isn’t feeling too well, perhaps because he drank or took something to deal with the situation: I’m so scared in case I fall off my chair / And I’m wondering how I’ll get down the stairs. He hints that although the crowd might ostensibly be gathered to celebrate his good fortune, he suspects they’re there because they want something: And your friends they all come crawling / Slap you on the back and say / Please, please.

Trying to make sense of it all / But I can see it makes no sense at all, the narrator moans, before considering a nap on the floor to extricate himself from the situation. Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle with You” manages to be a good-time track about one of the worst times possible, a facet of it that made it simply irresistible to Quentin Tarantino 20 years later.

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