"The Middle" is a song by the American alternative rock band Jimmy Eat World. It was released in November 2001 as the second single of their fourth album Bleed American. It was a top five Billboard Hot 100 hit in 2002. The song was a breakthrough hit for Jimmy Eat World (who had self-financed the recording of the Bleed American album after having been dropped by Capitol Records in 1999).

"The Middle" was written after Jimmy Eat World had been dropped from Capitol Records after their previous album Clarity had been released. Their second album Static Prevails had sold just 10,000 copies in 1996 and Capitol Records decided to drop the band in 1999 due to a change in priorities. Singer/guitarist Jim Adkins explained to the Dallas Observer: "We were just about invisible there and it wasn't going to get any better."

"The Middle" reflects these trying times for the band with lyrics about "Don't write yourself off yet" when feeling "left out or looked down on." The band decided to finance the recording of the album and decided to keep things simple on the new record rather than experiment, as they had done on previous records. "On our new stuff, rather than challenging ourselves [by] getting real experimental, we kind of went in the other direction, challenging ourselves by getting very simple."

Once completed, Jimmy Eat World took Bleed American to record companies and was signed to DreamWorks Records. Bleed American was released in the middle of 2001 with the title track as the lead single. However, following the September 11 attacks the album's title was changed to Jimmy Eat World and the lead single failed to win airplay, although it reached the top 20 of the Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks.

The song has been characterized under genres such as alternative rock,pop punk, and power pop.

When "The Middle" was released, the success of the album and the band was dependent on the single breaking through. By early 2002, the song had reached the top of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. The song then crossed over to Top 40 radio, resulting in it reaching a peak of #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song also charted in the UK, reaching a peak of #26 in 2002. The band toured extensively behind the album, touring with Weezer, Tenacious D, Green Day, Blink-182, and the Vans Warped Tour as well as the band's own headlining tour. "The Middle" was the most commercially successful single released from Bleed American.

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