Greatest Middle Eights

These are the songs that I think have the best middle eights.  If you know the song, but can’t quite hear the middle eight, hopefully the lyrics will jog your memory.  If you don’t know the song, get on Spotify and have a listen!

Anberlin – A Whisper and a Clamour – ‘It’s not the words that you say/But what the silence will scream’

Athlete – Black Swan Song – ‘And the rain beat down on the rooftops/But there was no sound, there was no sound/And all my friends and family carried me/They carried me home, carried me home’

Bloc Party – Kreuzberg (outro) – ‘After sex/The bitter taste/Been fooled again/The search continues/Concerned mothers of the west/Teach your sons how to truly love’

Bloc Party – Sunday – ‘When I’m with you I am calm/A pearl in your oyster/Head on my chest/A siklent smile/A private kind of happiness/You see giant proclamations are all very well/But our love is louder than words’

British Sea Power – Carrion – ‘When this Corpus Christic isle became a land of ocean blue/Again, she cried, you turned my eye, at mentions of, no matter why/And in the end, an August sun, and one by one we blew/Until the devil screamed in the evermore in envy of the grace we saw’

Coldplay – Fix You – ‘Tears stream down your face/When you lose something you cannot replace/Tears stream down your face/And I/Tears stream down your face/I promise you I will learn from my mistakes/Tears stream down your face/And I’’

David Crowder Band – The glory of it all – ‘After night comes the light/Dawn is here, dawn is here/It’s a new day, it’s a new day/And everything will change/Things will never be the same/We will never be the same/We will never be the same/We will never be the same/We will never be the same’

Delirious – My Glorious (ramble, if it can count!) – ‘Glory glory, sound of glory’

Delirious – Mountain’s High – ‘Your ways are high, too high for us/Only you, only you, only you can pull me your way’

Editors – Weight of the world – ‘You touch my face/God whispers in my ear/There are tears in my eyes/Love replaces fear’

Idlewild – American English- ‘You came along and found the weak spot, that you’ve always wanted/Let yourself be everything, that you’ve always wanted/It doesn’t have to be so decided, you’ve always wanted/No need for explanations, you’ve always wanted’

Idlewild –  El Capitan (outro) – ‘You were looking at pictures of the distance/Hoping to see the future in your pictures of the distance’

Jars of Clay – Worlds Apart – ‘I look beyond the empty cross forgetting what my life has cost/And wipe away the crimson stains and dull the nails that still remain/More and more I need you now I owe you more each passing hour/The battle between grace and pride I gave up not so long ago/So steal my heart and take the pain and wash my feet and cleanse my pride/Take the selfish, take the weak and all the things I cannot hide/Take the beauty take my tears, this sin-soaked heart and make it yours/Take my world all apart, take it now, take it now/And serve the ones that I despise, speak the words I can’t deny /And watch the world I used to love fall to dust and thrown away/I look beyond the empty cross forgetting what my life has cost/And wipe away the crimson stains and dull the nails the still remain/So steal my heart and take the pain, take the selfish, take the weak/And all the things I cannot hide, take the beauty take my tears/Take my world apart, take my world apart/I pray, I pray, I pray/Take my world apart’

Lifehouse – Simon – ‘Refuse to feel anything at all/Refuse to slip, refuse to fall/Can’t be weak, can’t stand still/Watch your back, cos no-one will/You don’t know why they had to go this far/Traded your worth for these scars, for your only company/Don’t believe the lies that they have told to you, not one word was true/You’re alright, you’re alright, you’re alright’

Lifehouse – Quasimodo – ‘Have you ever felt like your only comfort was your cage?/You’re not alone, I’ve felt the same as you/Have you ever felt like your secrets give you away?/You’re not alone, I’ve been there too/Cos everyone is looking, and everyone is laughing/But I think everyone feels the same/Everybody wants to feel ok, everybody wants too, everybody wants to feel’

Linkin Park – Papercut – ‘The sun goes down/I fell the light betray me’

Live – Run to the Water – ‘Yeah, I can see it now lord/Out beyond all the breaking of waves and the tribulation/It’s a place and the home of ascended souls/Who swam out there in love!

Live – They stood up for love – ‘We made it to the moon but we cant make it home/Waiting on a rescue that never comes/Made it to the moon but we cant make it home/Maybe home is where the heart is given up to the one, to the one’

Mew – 156 – ‘One five six, don’t you just love goodbyes?’

Mew – She came home for Christmas – ‘Come home, come home, Jan, Jan’

Sabio – Mother – ‘Losing our identity, slowly fading our thumbprints/We’ve let fashion fit the access to the code of fitting in/Tumbling downhill, escalating at some pace/Spinning, twisting, turning, the world is falling on its face today/This world needs a place it can escape/Oh my mother, would you open heaven’s gates, would you open heaven’s gates?’

Strangeday – Fogpilot – ‘I want to fly, I want to fly, I want to fly’

Most of the songs from my list of 'contenders for greatest song ever' are above (Carrion, The Glory of it All, My Glorious, American English, Worlds Apart, Quasimodo, Run to the Water, Mother, Fogpilot), which would suggest that, for me, an important factor in what makes an outstanding song is an excellent middle eight.  The songs from my favourites list that aren’t above (other than the worship songs) are:

Enya – Wild Child

Feeder – Morning Life

The Kissaway Trail – Smother + Evil = Hurt

Mew – Am I Wry? No

Stellastarr – Lost in Time