[Verse 1] (chorus-pedal guitar, rhodes, brushed drums) No one names a song for it, the middle and the gray The years between the stories, neither here nor far away Too old to be beginning, too young to look behind Just the long unglamorous middle that the songs all leave behind [Chorus] (full band, soft sax, lush harmonies) Nobody's favorite year, no medal and no scar Just the mortgage and the Tuesdays and the way the seasons are No one's going to film it, no one's raising up a glass But the quiet, ordinary middle is the most of what we pass [Verse 2] (rhodes and synth pad, upright bass) A man can't place the difference between thirty-eight and nine The kids, the job, the gutters, and the slow and steady line A woman counts the decade and it blurs into a smear Of nothing she'd remember and the years she held most dear [Chorus] (fuller, mellotron strings) Nobody's favorite year, no medal and no scar Just the mortgage and the Tuesdays and the way the seasons are No one's going to film it, no one's raising up a glass But the quiet, ordinary middle is the most of what we pass [Bridge] (drums drop, rhodes and sax only) The great years and the awful ones are easy to recall But the middle does the living while you're hardly there at all It lays the thing beneath you, brick by ordinary brick And you only see the building when you're far enough to look [Sax Solo] (soft saxophone over warm rhodes) [Chorus] (final, stacked harmonies) Nobody's favorite year, and yet it holds the most The plain unhurried middle that we never even toast No one's going to sing it, so consider this the one For the years that no one cheers for, and the quiet work they've done [Outro] (guitar and organ fading) The calendar turns over on a year without a name (no one's best, no one's best) And we loved it just the same
