After a whirlwind experience with Supergirl, the singer behind the movie’s much-debated cover version of Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” is confident that everything will be all right.
It wasn’t until two months before Supergirl’s June 26 release that Kelty Greye got an email from the DC Studios film’s team about including her version of the 2001 power-pop anthem. This was an improbable turn of events for Greye, an as-yet-unsigned artist who had recorded the cover in her bedroom three years prior while studying commercial songwriting at Middle Tennessee State University.
At the time, Greye had just landed with sync licensing agency Think Music after getting attention for posting an original song. The agency connected her with producer KidMotel and suggested a list of singles for a possible cover. “The Middle,” which remains Jimmy Eat World’s signature tune after becoming a top-five hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart when it debuted 25 years ago, jumped out to Greye as one she had loved while growing up.
“I recorded that in my bedroom between classes in a little booth I built out of packing blankets and PVC pipe,” the performer tells The Hollywood Reporter of the recording that was not altered for the film. She had never previously performed the song and explains about the origins of her slowed-down rendition: “I was an emo. I loved that whole genre of music, but that’s not my style to sing like that. And I’m a violinist, so I talked to my producer and was like, ‘What if I put violin strings?’ He sent me the guitar track and was like, ‘What if we slow it down a bit, and your voice is really soft?’ It’s such a powerful song, and I love the message. It was really, really cool to sing it as a woman.”
With lyrics imploring, “It just takes some time, little girl, you’re in the middle of the ride,” the song is associated with the angst-laden emo rock scene that thrived in the 2000s, and Jimmy Eat World closed with “The Middle” when playing Coachella last year. However, Supergirl’s cover sparked widespread discussion on social media that had little to do with Greye’s performance or interpretation but focused on fans questioning the introspective version coming at an action-packed moment in the film for Milly Alcock‘s title character. Of course, the movie itself has been widely debated, with DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran noting that its box office opening did not meet expectations.
Kelty Greye
Anna Haas of Anna Haas Creative
When asked how it has felt for her song to get so much attention, Greye says, “As an artist, all you want to do is make people feel something. So, what an honor to have created something that gives people a wide spectrum of feelings. Whether you loved it or hated it, if you walked out feeling something, that’s just cool: ‘Wow — gave you an emotional response.’”
The fact that social media users were quite opinionated about the song’s inclusion took some time for Greye to process. “At first, it was a little surreal,” she admits of the response. “I just was seeing my name pop up on things and was like, ‘That’s wild.’ But after the first 24 hours, I was like, ‘You know what? That’s cool. I’m down. Any feelings you want, it’s cool.’”
Milly Alcock in Supergirl.
Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Greye notes that she wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about her song’s inclusion in the film until the day of the Supergirl release, and she had no idea that it would become the final needle drop. “Things were always up for debate,” she says of possible last-minute changes to the song’s placement. Indeed, director Craig Gillespie has revealed that 45 songs were considered for that pivotal spot, with THR reporting that a cover of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” came close to getting the nod. Adds Greye, “When the movie came out, I was at work and couldn’t go see it yet. And I was seeing spoilers on the internet about where the song was, which is crazy.”
Life has yet to change dramatically for Greye, who continues to work her day job at a customer support call center in Nashville. She admits that she was on the brink of giving up her folk-pop singer-songwriter aspirations when she found out about Supergirl, and now, having recently released Haunt Me, her debut four-song EP that includes original tunes alongside a Nina Simone cover, she looks forward to exploring where music could yet take her.
“My favorite thing in the world is music in film, so this has always been my dream,” says Greye, who hopes to someday connect with producer James Gunn to thank him for the opportunity and learn what made her performance stand out. As for her feelings about the sequence that features her singing, she adds, “I enjoyed the movie and just thought it was a really wonderful scene. Really cool to hear my song in it but thought it was powerful for the characters.”
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