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Charley Pride – In The Middle of Nowhere

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Introduction

You know those songs that seem to pull you right into the story, like a secret door only you can open? “In the Middle of Nowhere” is one of those songs. It’s haunting in the best way—painting a picture of isolation, heartbreak, and the weight of being left behind. This isn’t just a tune you hum; it’s the soundtrack for anyone who’s felt that pang of loneliness and wondered if anyone else has been there, too.

The magic of “In the Middle of Nowhere” lies in its raw honesty. The lyrics strip away all the pretense, showing us a narrator who’s stranded emotionally, waiting for a love that’s either forgotten them or simply moved on. You can almost feel the dusty roads, the empty spaces, and the heavy silence surrounding them. Every line feels like it’s whispered from a place of vulnerability, and when you listen, it’s like you’re right there with them in the quiet.

But it’s not all sadness. There’s something beautiful about how the song captures that familiar feeling of being left in the dust yet finding a kind of strength in just surviving the emptiness. Maybe that’s why it resonates so deeply. We’ve all had our own “middle of nowhere” moments—times when the world goes quiet, and all we have are our thoughts. This song taps into that universal experience and somehow makes you feel a little less alone in it

Video

Lyrics

They had meant for me one last
Time to see my hometown again
Once again go there see the places
Where as a child I’ve been
As I journeyed now it was so
Far out it was almost in
In the middle in the middle of nowhere
Sadness talked with me as I walked
The streets of my memory
Streets that seemed somehow so much smaller
Now than they used to be
Talked of other days when this tiny
Place had been home to me
In the middle in the middle of nowhere
People stared at me in silence
As I walked around
Time had passed till I was
Just a stranger there
Folks had changed so much that no
One even knew me now
In the middle in the middle of nowhere
I went once again to the schoolyard
Where I used to play
Passed the church of mom and daddy
Where they used to pray
Down the dusty road to the churchyard
Where they both now lay
In the middle in the middle of nowhere
As I placed my blue forgetmenots
There on the ground one last time I knelt by
Mom and dad in prayer
Then I said goodbye forever
To that little town
In the middle in the middle of nowhere

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HE OPENED THE ENVELOPE, SAW JOHN DENVER’S NAME, AND SET COUNTRY MUSIC’S BIGGEST AWARD ON FIRE. Charlie Rich had not come to Nashville as a clean country product. He was born in Colt, Arkansas, raised around gospel, blues, jazz, and cotton-field country. His mother played piano in church. A Black sharecropper named C. J. Allen helped teach him blues piano. By the time Rich found his way through Sun Records, RCA, Smash, Hi, and finally Epic, he had already been too jazzy for country, too country for pop, and too strange for the easy lane. Then 1973 changed everything. “Behind Closed Doors” hit. “The Most Beautiful Girl” hit even bigger. Rich became the Silver Fox, won major awards, and in 1974 took CMA Entertainer of the Year. For one year, the man Nashville had never known how to file became the man holding its highest prize. On October 13, 1975, he walked back onstage at the CMA Awards to name the next Entertainer of the Year. He opened the envelope. John Denver. Rich paused, pulled out a lighter, and burned the card before announcing, “My friend, Mr. John Denver.” Some called it protest. Some called it drunken bad judgment. His son later said Rich had pain medication, gin and tonics, a broken foot, and thought it would be funny — not a personal attack on Denver. The explanation came later. The image stayed first. A white-haired country star. A live television stQage. One burning slip of paper. And a career that never fully stepped out of that smoke.

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JEAN SHEPARD CUT “LONESOME 7-7203” BEFORE HER HUSBAND DID. CAPITOL LEFT IT SITTING. THEN HAWKSHAW HAWKINS RECORDED IT — AND DIED THREE DAYS AFTER ITS RELEASE. The song did not start as Hawkshaw Hawkins’ last hit. It passed through Jean Shepard first. By the early 1960s, Jean was already one of country music’s toughest women. She had come up through honky-tonk, made “A Dear John Letter” a No. 1 duet, joined the Grand Ole Opry, and proved she was not just a pretty harmony voice in a man’s business. Hawkshaw Hawkins was already part of that same Opry world. Tall, smooth, steady, with a career that had stretched from West Virginia radio to national country stages. He and Jean married in 1960. Two singers. Two roads. One house outside Nashville. Then came a Justin Tubb song called “Lonesome 7-7203.” Jean recorded it for Capitol, but the label left it unreleased. The song sat there. A lonely telephone number. A heartbreak line waiting for somebody to dial it. Hawkshaw finally told her that if Capitol was not going to release it, he would record it himself. King Records released his version on March 2, 1963. Three days later, Hawkshaw Hawkins was dead. The plane crash near Camden took him, Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, and pilot Randy Hughes. Jean was left with the grief, the children, and the strange sound of her husband’s voice still rising on the radio. Then the song climbed. “Lonesome 7-7203” reached No. 1 after Hawkshaw was gone. Jean had recorded it first. Hawkshaw made it immortal. Country music kept dialing the number after the man who sang it could no longer answer.

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JEAN SHEPARD CUT “LONESOME 7-7203” BEFORE HER HUSBAND DID. CAPITOL LEFT IT SITTING. THEN HAWKSHAW HAWKINS RECORDED IT — AND DIED THREE DAYS AFTER ITS RELEASE. The song did not start as Hawkshaw Hawkins’ last hit. It passed through Jean Shepard first. By the early 1960s, Jean was already one of country music’s toughest women. She had come up through honky-tonk, made “A Dear John Letter” a No. 1 duet, joined the Grand Ole Opry, and proved she was not just a pretty harmony voice in a man’s business. Hawkshaw Hawkins was already part of that same Opry world. Tall, smooth, steady, with a career that had stretched from West Virginia radio to national country stages. He and Jean married in 1960. Two singers. Two roads. One house outside Nashville. Then came a Justin Tubb song called “Lonesome 7-7203.” Jean recorded it for Capitol, but the label left it unreleased. The song sat there. A lonely telephone number. A heartbreak line waiting for somebody to dial it. Hawkshaw finally told her that if Capitol was not going to release it, he would record it himself. King Records released his version on March 2, 1963. Three days later, Hawkshaw Hawkins was dead. The plane crash near Camden took him, Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, and pilot Randy Hughes. Jean was left with the grief, the children, and the strange sound of her husband’s voice still rising on the radio. Then the song climbed. “Lonesome 7-7203” reached No. 1 after Hawkshaw was gone. Jean had recorded it first. Hawkshaw made it immortal. Country music kept dialing the number after the man who sang it could no longer answer.

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