WCSX Classic Cuts : Middle of the Road
WCSX Classic Cuts
The Pretenders: “Middle of the Road”
The Hook: Chrissie Hynde getting philosophical.
Album: Learning to Crawl
Year: 1983
Writer: Chrissie Hynde
Stats: Peaked at number-two on Billboard‘s mainstream rock chart and number-19 on the Hot 100 singles chart.
Background: What inspired Chrissie Hynde to write The Pretenders “Middle of the Road”? She says it certainly wasn’t a radio format.
Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders on writing “Middle of the Road.” OC:…middle way. :19
“‘Middle of the Road’ is a sort of Daoist groove going on here — the middle way. But at that time I came over to the States and I started seeing this MOR format on the radio. And the middle of the road, I thought it was very funny — middle of the road was always considered ‘average’ — that they’d made it a kind of format. But for me, I was referring to the middle way.”
