Lyrics

MY MIDDLE NAME / © 2010 James Barton
From the All Come Home CD

My middle name always left me cold
By the time we were ten years old
Gone our separate ways
Me and my middle name

Kind of like salt in a sugar bowl
Or the Sacred Harp and rock and roll
I maintain
That’s the way it was with my middle name

But it was what it was
From the cradle to the grave
It was what it was
And ever shall remain

I had to see what I could see
So I quit my precious Tennessee
To find my claim to fame
Left behind my middle name

My middle name it cried and cried
A redheaded stepchild tossed aside
Out in the wind and rain
Out you go my middle name

But it was what it was…

Don’t turn back, don’t look behind
Town to town in double time
Anywhere but here and I’ll be fine
When the race was run, I came in first
Then found myself stuck in reverse
Fortunes changed from good, to bad, to worse

When the message came at the break of day
I was ‘bout a thousand miles away
By myself, alone,
“All’s forgiven, come on home”

A year it came and a year it went
Happiest year I ever spent
Back in Tennessee
Just my middle name and me

So it was what it was…