Reading Eminem: A Critical, Lyrical Analysis 3030796256, 9783030796259

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Reading Eminem A Critical, Lyrical Analysis

Glenn Fosbraey

Reading Eminem

Glenn Fosbraey

Reading Eminem A Critical, Lyrical Analysis

Glenn Fosbraey Faculty of Arts University of Winchester Winchester, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-79625-9    ISBN 978-3-030-79626-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79626-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: jonathan ORourke/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Introduction  1 Lyrics vs Poetry   4 Receiving Eminem   8 The Real Marshall Mathers?  11 Eminem and hip-hop  14 Content  17 Responsibility  22 References  23 2 Eminem and Story 27 Career Mode: Life as Story  31 Continued Narrative Threads Via Skits  35 Different Types of Story  37 A Single Song’s Narrative  44 Choruses and Narratives  47 A Single Song’s Narrative: An Analysis of ‘Stan’  49 Portmanteau Narratives  55 Lead Singles as Wider Cultural Narratives  56 Visual Storytelling  57 The End of the Story?  73 References  78

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Contents

3 Eminem and Voice 83 Perspective  84 Truth?  88 Freud and Eminem 101 Eminem and the Dream State 104 Eminem and the Second Self 105 Eminem the Killer 107 Eminem and the Hero 110 Distance Between Character and Author 112 References 117 4 Eminem and Language121 Authenticity and Identity 122 Getting a Reaction 130 Emotions 132 Eminem and the Protest Song 143 Humour 149 Eminem and Rhetorical Devices 150 Analysing ‘Lose Yourself’ 154 Close Reading ‘Lose Yourself’ 158 References 172 Final Thoughts177 Appendix: ‘Familiar Signs’179 References189

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

This book is divided into three sections: ‘Story’, ‘Voice’, and ‘Language’ in order separate the fundamental lyrical techniques Eminem uses in his lyrics. In the ‘Story’ section, we will look at how the narrative form in song lyrics needs to be condensed more than in other media, and how Eminem works within this restrictive format to create memorable and engaging stories. This section will examine Eminem’s storytelling technique in a variety of different ways, drawing upon film and literary theory to demonstrate how his lyrics can be analysed in terms of literary and film narrative theory, and how his storytelling can work with in a single song, prequels and sequels, album pairs, within his music videos, and how his entire career’s output can also be seen as one large, overarching story. In ‘Voice’, we will explore the use of character within Eminem’s songs, dissecting the question of ‘where do Marshall, Eminem, and Slim Shady begin and end’, and analysing Eminem’s lyrics under the microscope of psychoanalytic theory, with discussion of memory, truth, the second self, and the distance between character and author, as well as an examination of his use of first, second, and third person perspective in his lyrics. Finally, in ‘Language’ we will look at how Eminem uses a variety of rhetorical modes and devices to get a reaction from his audience, then conduct a close reading of ‘Lose Yourself’, analysing its literary devices (metaphor, allegory, simile, metonymy, idioms, poetic symbols, apostrophe, and slang) as well as its use of rhyme, character, tenses, and perspective to build a close examination of Eminem’s manipulation of language. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 G. Fosbraey, Reading Eminem, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79626-6_1

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Firstly, though, via this Introduction, we will look at Eminem in terms of his place within the wider hip-hop genre, and discuss the controversies that have followed him throughout his career and continue to follow him at the time of writing. * * * Marshall Bruce Mathers III, recording under the moniker Eminem but also performing under the alias Slim Shady, is one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful artists of all time. In 2020, with the release of his album Music to be Murdered by, Eminem was entered into The Guinness Book of Records as having the most consecutive No.1 debuts on the US albums chart (also the most consecutive No.1s period), adding to his previous records of top selling album act of the first decade of the 21st Century, fastest selling rap artist, most successful rap artist in the UK for singles. Critically, Eminem has been awarded one Academy Award (for best original song), eight American Music Awards, one BET Hip Hop Award, 10 Billboard Music Awards, four Brit Awards, 15 Grammy Awards, 16 MTV Europe Music Awards, five MTV Video Music Awards, seven People’s Choice Awards, nine World Music Awards, and dozens of other awards and nominations. With an estimated 227 million units sold, Eminem is the best-selling rapper in history and also the 6th best-selling solo music artist of all time (All Top Everything 2021). ‘Known for his shocking lyrics and satirising of pop culture, Eminem’s presence in hip hop expanded what success could look like’ (McDuffie 2020: 84). In his introduction to the 2000 book Angry Blonde, Eminem bemoans the fact that critics overanalysed the lyrics to his first two major label albums, but if anything, I think the opposite is true. Critics may have read a lot into the lyrics, but there wasn’t a great deal of actual analysis going on. Gavin Hopps suggests that many critics ‘read the lyrics literally, as transparent disclosures of the singer’s biography, which is to say they have a tendency to look through […] rather than at’ lyrics (Hopps 2009: 9) and that has certainly been the case for much of the ‘analysis’ of Eminem’s work in the past. As Hopps goes on to say: It is naïve to think that we can treat art as a sort of stethoscope, which collapses the intervening boundaries, and read unproblematically backwards from text to the ‘heart and soul’

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of the author, as though there were no intervals or medium in between—however much texts themselves may tempt us to do so. (Hopps 2009: 85)

This book, the first full-length academic text about Eminem’s lyrics, will analyse his body of work as we might analyse the work of any important figure in the Arts, be it poetry, literature, film, or theatre. In so doing, we look at the texts not merely as windows into the ‘heart and soul’ of their authors as so many critics and writers do, but analyse them in terms of their narrative structures; their use of character, voice, and intertextuality; their use of rhetorical devices to shock, rally, inspire, and ‘speak’ to us, their use of literary, their use of cultural references and cues as shortcuts to establishing time period, economic background, status, and political messages; and yes, some investigation of biography and discussion of just how much of the author is present in the lyrics. Many words have been written in the past dismissing the pop song lyric as ‘disposable—or worse, as spiritually bankrupt’ (Frisicks-Warren 2006: 2). ‘Literature, theatre, opera, and film are deemed to be capable of tackling the really heavyweight subjects with the requisite degree of chin-­ stroking gravitas [but] the leftovers—the gently crooned “babies”, the screamed “oh yeahs”, the sundry other trifles and fripperies … go to pop. At least that seems to be the critical and cultural consensus’ (Thomson 2008: viii). But lyrics are so important to so many of us that they transcend art and become philosophical, spiritual, and/or life-affirming. Enter ‘song lyric tattoos’ into Google images and it’s immediately evident that some lyrics have been so important that people have had them permanently etched upon their skin (the most popular Eminem lyric tattoo seems to be the spoken introduction from ‘Lose Yourself’ incidentally). Songs with meaningful lyrics are played at weddings (I even had lyrics read out at my wedding instead of poetry, much to the consternation of my poor cousin, who had to read the lyrics to Pink Floyd’s ‘Time’ instead of the Shakespeare sonnet he’d brought with him just in case I changed my mind and saw sense); a song can be dubbed as ‘our song’ in a relationship, or can soundtrack a period in our lives when we were joyful, sorrowful, heartbroken, etc. etc. Lyrics from Marilyn Manson, The Beatles, Slipknot, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest and many more have been cited in murder and suicide court cases. Kurt Cobain included a lyrical snippet from Neil Young’s ‘Rust Never Sleeps’ in his suicide note, and some lyrics have been deemed so destructive or dangerous that they have gained the attentions

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of governments. The rapper Tyler the Creator was even rejected entry to the UK ‘under the terms of Home Office policy on “behaviours unacceptable in the UK”’ in 2015 (Shepherd 2015). ‘For many people, popular music is central to the construction of their identities, central to their sense of self, central to their well-being […] it has become central to the everyday personal lives of most people.’ (Partridge 2015: 4) I wrote in a previous book that the paradox between the impact song lyrics have on society and its lack of serious discussion in academic circles needs to be addressed, and my exploration of Eminem’s lyrics within this book will seek to demonstrate that a popular artist can produce songs that ‘have all the depth and texture of the greatest examples of English verse.’ (Foden 2001). Before going much further, I do need to determine how I’m going to refer to our subject on these pages. I started my first draft referring to him as ‘Mathers’ (i.e. ‘in this song, Mathers wrote a series of rhymes about D12’ etc.), but it dawned on me after a while that to do so would be disrespectful to the old art of the stage name, alias, or nom de plume (however you want to phrase it). I wouldn’t refer to Elton John as ‘Dwight’ if writing about him, nor Lemmy as ‘Kilmister’, not Jay Z as ‘Carter’, nor Dr. Dre as ‘Young’ and so on and so forth. Eminem is the name that appears on the album covers, after all, so it’s the name that the music is appearing under, irrespective of the fact the copyright info. credits Marshall Mathers. So, in respect to the alias, I will refer to him as Eminem when discussing anything to do with the songs recorded under that moniker, but Mathers when talking about the biography of the man behind the alias.

Lyrics vs Poetry In The Anthology of Rap, editors Bradley & DuBois bemoan the fact that ‘rap has yet to attain adequate recognition as poetry’ and refer to rap as ‘a body of lyrics that responds to transcription, explication, and analysis as poetry’ (Bradley and DuBois 2010: xxx). To ‘read rap lyrics in print’, they argue, ‘is most often to restore them to their original form’, seeing as ‘Rap songs almost always begin the same way: as lyrics written in an MC’s book of rhymes.’ (Bradley and DuBois 2010: xxx) Although I have been quite vocal in previous publications about the difference between lyrics and poetry (the main argument being that once recorded and released, the lyrics and the music of a song are forever bonded), but the similarities between hip hop lyrics and poetry shouldn’t be ignored and rhythm and rhyme, use of simile and metaphor, and use of storytelling are certainly

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vital to both forms. But in the case of Eminem, to focus only on his lyrics as Bradley & DuBois suggest we do, glosses over the importance of the melodic hook in his songs, or the use of sampling, and production. His fusion of hip hop and pop (something Eminem is sensitive about—see the lyrics of ‘Rap God’ as an example), including highly melodic choruses, has potentially been one of the reasons Eminem has enjoyed such popularity. This isn’t to ignore his skill as an MC or lyric writer, but rather to see his songs as the lyrical and musical products that they are. As Eckstein says: ‘lyrics are not poetry, and their study therefore requires a different set of analytical tools from that which is conventionally applied to poetry’ (Eckstein 2010: 23) Song lyrics will always be linked with poetry due to their structure, rhyme, and meter, but there are significant differences, of course. In his book Tunesmith, songwriter Jimmy Webb says that ‘the content of a lyric differs from that of a poem in that storytelling or development must be accomplished more expeditiously within the confines of the song. There are a finite number of “slots” available for syllables of any kind in the format of the popular song.’ (Webb 1998: 68) Eminem does, of course, use techniques that align themselves with what we’d look for in poetic analysis. He uses enjambement and caesura, masculine and feminine rhymes, rhyming couplets, multi-syllable rhymes, flirts on occasion with Iambic Pentameter (see first chorus of ‘Just Don’t Give a Fuck’), and draws upon a wide range of rhyme schemes and types, including numerous internal rhymes. But… Eminem is a lyricist, and therefore when analysing his lyrics, to isolate them from their music (and, perhaps, as we’ll discuss later, their music video and artwork) is to analyse only ‘one half of a work’ (Gottlieb and Kimbal 2000: xxiv). Arguably, like folk music where ‘there can be no doubt that the words of the song are all-important […and] the tune takes second place’ (Zuckerkand 1973: 114), lyrics in Hip Hop comprise more than half of the importance of a song, and we can see successful hip hop tracks whose backing tracks can sometimes be as basic as a beat and nothing else. Producers can capitalise on this by drawing the attention to certain aspects, and in Eminem’s case, the vocals are always very high up in the mix, panned centrally, and presented with little in the way of effects. Just because lyrics are deemed important, however, some don’t deem them more important than any other song component, including Eminem mentor and producer Dr. Dre, who has said in interviews that ‘he sees rapping as just another part of a song’s sound, not necessarily more or less important than, say, the percussion.’ (Westhoff 2017: 103). Indeed, one of the fastest ways for a song to ‘get a reaction’

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from a listener, is through its sound. ‘Just as there are well-proven ways to structure a story, there are certain song forms that pop composers use again and again [… with] the most common […being the] verse-chorus form.’ (Sloan and Harding 2020: 47) Eminem uses this format almost exclusively throughout his career, with a few exceptions (e.g. a brief ‘bridge’ section in ‘Rap God’, the ‘B section’ of Bad Guy’ and the post-­ chorus sections which precede the verses in ‘Rhyme or Reason’ standing out. For the most part, though, from a structural perspective, Eminem’s songs—like a lot of hip hop songs—are simplistic. If a song is to be memorable, the mixture of melodic/ instrumental hook is key to making it so. As an example, Billie Eilish’s 2021 album Happier Than Ever contains the song ‘Not My Responsibility’ whose lyrics explore important discussions on body image, body shaming, and the male gaze but appear as a semi-­ whispered spoken word recital over a forgettable and banal backing track that contains no melodic hook. Compare this to Nicki Minaj’s ‘Anaconda’, for example, or Meghan Trainor’s ‘All About the Bass’, both of which contain examples of body shaming (‘Fuck those skinny bitches’, (2014) and ‘I’m bringing booty back/ go ahead and tell them skinny bitches that (2014) respectively) but are found within songs filled with melodic hooks that stick in the brain. The messages that are more memorable in these examples, therefore, are (sadly) the ones which body shame (Minaj and Trainor), rather than the one that speaks out against body shaming (Eilish). Eminem himself is an expert in combining ‘hummable hooks and blunt lyrics, enticing his now very diverse fan base into off-colour sing-­ alongs […that are] tough to purge once heard.’ (Bozza 2004: 79-80) Levitin says ‘music that involves too many chord changes, or unfamiliar structure, can lead many listeners straight to the nearest exit, or to the ‘skip’ button on their music players. (Levitin 2008: 237) As such, much popular music utilises identifiable and familiar structures so as not to alienate existing and potential fans. Eminem is no exception to this, with the vast majority of his songs containing identifiable verses (rapped) and choruses (sung), melodic and vocal hooks, with very little deviation from basic bass drum, snare, and hi-hat beats in common time with no tempo changes, and basic chord sequences. Eminem’s top 3 biggest selling songs on the UK charts are ‘Lose Yourself’, ‘Love the Way you Lie, and ‘Stan’, and all involve inversions of the ‘cliché’ chord progression I-IV-V-vi: ‘Lose Yourself’ (vi-IV-V) ‘Love the Way you Lie (vi-IV-V-I), and ‘Stan’ (vi-IV-­ V-I). Many more of the more melodic songs in Eminem’s catalogue also contain the ‘cliché’ chord progression, or variations thereof, including

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‘Like Toy Soldiers’, ‘In your head’, ‘Nowhere Fast’, ‘Hailie’s Song’, ‘Stan’, ‘Mockingbird’, ‘Love the way you lie’, and ‘Headlights’ itself, whose final ‘outro’ section uses the I –vi –IV–V sequence, ‘a chord progression commonly associated in pedagogical materials with the doo-wop style, whose peak of popularity was in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and that is still used relatively often today’ (Jimenez et al. 2020: 6) and is linked with feelings of sadness and nostalgia, which, combined with the regret and nostalgia of the lyrics makes for a very potent and effective mix. In Switched on Pop, Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding suggest the ‘50s Progression’, or ‘ice cream changes’ as they call it, to go through the following ‘journey’: The I chord is ‘the safety of home’; the vi chord ‘a dark turn in the woods’; The IV chord ‘a signal for hope’, and the V chord ‘the joyous rescue (Sloan and harding 2020: 42). ‘The types of sounds, rhythms, and musical textures we find pleasing are generally extensions of previous positive experiences we’ve had with music in our lives’ (Levitin 2008: 242) and in Eminem’s case, he is likely to appeal to hip-hop fans because in his songs they find the beats, production sounds, and raps they’re familiar with from other artists in the genre, but he is also likely to appeal to pop fans because of his melodic hooks, many of which draw upon the extremely familiar four chord ‘cliché’ sequence. Hip-hop can also feel familiar to us due to its consistent time signature. As Edwards says, ‘very few hip-hop tracks use time signatures other than 4/4 time…’ (Edwards 2013: npm) and Eminem’s catalogue is no exception, with almost the entirety of his tracks in standard 4/4, with only a few outliers: ‘Won’t Back Down’, for example, which is in 3/4, and ‘Underground’, which although technically in 4/4 is so syncopated that it feels almost like 5/8 (thanks to my colleague Neil Valentine at The University of Winchester for figuring that out!) The sound of Eminem’s voice is also essential in making us feel a connection with his music. As someone able to perform as any talented actor might, he shows a great range in his styles, being able to shift from one mood to another (sometimes even within the same song). In ‘Kim’, for example, he starts the song by speaking to Hailie, delicately, soothingly, and lovingly, then within the space of a few seconds exploding with startling rage as he addresses Kim. Throughout the rest of the song here he alternates between anger, desperation, and outright sorrow. Over the rest of his career, we see similar range: the softness of his delivery on the verses of ‘Mockingbird’ or the way he sings on ‘Hailie’s Song’ on one side, and ‘The Way I am’ which is ‘spit through clenched teeth and vocal chords’

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(Bozza 2004: 90), and expelling of pent-up aggression on ‘Cleanin’ out my Closet’ on the other. In between this, we have the openness and sincerity of ‘If I had’, the tongue-in-cheek levity of ‘My Dad’s Gone Crazy’, the world-weariness of ‘Soldier’, or ‘Like Toy Soldiers’, the mockery of ‘Big Weenie’, the confusion and resignation of ‘3 am’, the creepy pitiless threat of ‘Same Song and Dance’, the bravado of ‘Crack and Bottle’, the determination of ‘Cold Wind Blows’ or ‘Kamikaze’, the sadness of (the second part of) ‘Bad Guy’: the impact of each of these songs would be totally different had Eminem adopted a different style of delivery when recording them.

Receiving Eminem I am writing this in the summer of 2021, twenty-two years after Eminem released his mainstream debut album The Slim Shady LP. To say that the way we physically receive Eminem’s music now is different to how we received it in 1999 is an understatement of epic proportions. In 1999, no social media existed, text messaging was still a novelty, smartphones were still over a decade away, Amazon was only a modest online bookstore, and MTV had only one channel and still played music videos. To buy The Slim Shady LP wasn’t massively different to buying albums from the 20 years preceding it—you needed to walk into a shop and buy a physical copy, and then—those of us without a personal CD player, anyway—take it home and listen to it on a stereo. No streaming on Spotify, no 30 second previews on i-Tunes, and certainly no giving it the briefest of listens before going in search of something else. In 1999, if you went and bought a CD, you committed to it, listening to it over and over, forming a relationship with it not just out of choice, but out of necessity, for if you wanted to listen to something else, you had to either return it (always embarrassing), or buy something else (not economically viable for many of us). I have remained—stubbornly and old-fashionably, perhaps—attached to CDs, making sure to always buy a hard copy of the latest releases from my favourite artists as and when they are released, and Eminem is no exception. As I sit here, laptop open on a fresh(ish) Word document, I have in front of me a pile of Eminem CDs, stacked from top to bottom in chronological order, beginning with the aforementioned The Slim Shady LP, and topped with most recent studio album Music to be Murdered by. Twenty one years of Eminem music in a neat pile: the first released with Bill Clinton as president, pre 9/11, in a world yet to know TikTok, Smashed

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Avocado, or Crocs, and the last released under the presidency of Donald Trump just as the world was about to change forever under the relentless spread of Covid 19. And our ability to be able to listen to an album in its entirety seems to have disappeared too, perhaps explaining why The 77 minute-long Revival, which would have been welcomed as value for money back in 1999 (even if it was able to squeeze itself onto a single compact disc) seems a chore to get through in one sitting now, and is even described as ‘an exhausting listen’ by Pitchfork (Ruiz 2017) among many other negative reviews. It’s no surprise, therefore, that Kamikaze, Eminem’s shortest album at just shy of 46 minutes has garnered the most positive critical reception in recent years. So what about looking back at those early Eminem albums; the ones that shocked and delighted in equal measure and made Eminem a worldwide star? What’s it like to look back at those with 2021 eyes? For one, it’s apparent how much of a zeitgeist artist Eminem is, and how many pop culture references are jammed into his songs. It’s a risk for an artist to do such a thing, as it ages their work and makes them seem less relevant when looking back. That’s why so many artists, in popular music as well as hip-hop tend towards the generic and oft-cliché themes: love, lust, breakups, money, dancing—things that don’t age and can therefore be relied on to stay fresher for longer. With such tracks, it’s only the production that ages. It’s remarkable, then, that Eminem’s back catalogue, full of late 90s/ early 2000s celeb references (Kris Kirkpatrick, Nick Lachey, and Tom Green, anyone?) remain so popular. At the time of writing, Eminem’s 2006 greatest hits collection Curtain Call ‘has become the first hip-hop record to sit a full 10 years in the Billboard 200’ (Skinner 2021) after re-entering the charts yet again in October 2020 despite being filled with namechecks like Carson Daley, Marcus Allen, Ron Goldman, Canibus, Steve Stoute, and Pamela Lee. My CD stack, and my penchant for keeping stickers on the front of them, also allows me a snapshot back into what the record-buying public saw when they picked up a CD in HMV (other music stores are available: in fact, back in the early 2000s the high street of my hometown of Southampton was home to Our Price, Virgin, Tower Records, independent shops Essential Music and Falcon Records as well as CDs being on sale in WH Smiths and Woolworths, of course). Stuck onto the cover of The Marshall Mathers LP, released in 2000 when it was common for record labels to affix review snippets along with information like ‘Featuring the No.1 single The Real Slim Shady’ we find two reviews, the first from Select, which praises Eminem for his ‘verbal dexterity, wild imagination and

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quickfire delivery beyond most of his rapping contemporaries’ and the second from The Independent which says ‘Eminem has a gift for comic timing & impersonations’ and describes him as ‘wilfully offensive, articulate, witty, passionate [and] very skilfully produced (by Dr. Dre) and performed.’ Ringing endorsements indeed, during a three-year period between 1999 and 2002 when Eminem was the critics’ darling as well as multi-million-selling chart-topper. And what about now? In Southampton, the only place to buy CDs is from a tiny selection in ASDA, so my purchases are now invariably online. Instead of seeing snippet reviews on CD covers, therefore, I now have the opportunity to look at the websites’ own ‘product descriptions’ or ratings. Amazon, for example, include a star rating just under the album’s title, with (on the UK site) thousands of buyer ratings and reviews for the potential purchaser to wade through at leisure. Spotify have an artist rating (Eminem is currently at #28), the amount of monthly listens (nearing 41 million), links to all his other albums, numerous playlists, ‘Eminem radio’, a ‘fans also like’ section (with D12, Bad Meets Evil, The Game, and Hopsin featuring), and a playlist of ‘popular songs’. On Apple Music, Music to be Murdered by is topped by a 360 word review from an unnamed writer, much of which passes judgement on the album’s more controversial content with observations such as ‘The divide between Eminem, lyrical savant and god of rap, and Slim Shady, a trigger-happy psychopath, has always been difficult to bridge. It’s harder to hear shock-value sucker punches about domestic violence and disability—least of all because they risk discrediting the genuinely powerful moments that Eminem is so uniquely capable of’ (Apple Music). All of this is a roundabout way of saying that the way we buy and digest music today invariably leads to us forming judgments based on the opinions of others before we’ve heard a note of the music. We had a variation of this back in 1999, of course, via album reviews in the music magazines and newspapers, but such reviews were (hopefully) all conducted having given the album a fair run and (hopefully) a considered and fair assessment. In 2021, a google search for ‘Eminem Revival album review’ yields 159 results before descending into tenuous links to the search term. Over 150 opinions at click of mouse. Go on to Amazon and we are faced with 5,649 ratings (and comments) including reviews such as this (from a ‘Mr MooMoo’): ‘There is no humour to the lyrics anymore, there is no “musicality” to the music anymore. it’s just duh duh duh duhdy duh duh duh. This is not music anymore.’ Or this, from ‘denise’: ‘Fantastic item Very

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quick delivery’. Our chances of making our own minds up about an album are getting slimmer and slimmer. We could ignore all the reviews and comments, of course, but that’s almost impossibly hard to resist for the curious mind. Such a flood of opinions isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s good for everyone to be able to pass comment (or judgement), not just the select few, but such advances have also taken away the element of surprise. The Slim Shady LP was so shocking back in 1999 because a lot of us didn’t really see it coming. My own exposure to it before buying came solely from the video to ‘My Name Is’, which, seeing as it was broadcast on MTV was the censored version, and although a bit edgy, certainly didn’t prepare me for getting home, putting on the CD and hearing ‘’97 Bonnie and Clyde’ (getting his toddler daughter to help him dump her murdered mother in a lake) , ‘Role Model’ (ripping out Hilary Clinton’s tonsils) or ‘Just Don’t Give a fuck’ (raping a swim team). Even hearing the uncensored version of ‘My Name Is’ was a shock. There’s quite a difference, for example between Eminem asking if his dad had seen him in a ‘porno mag’ to him dreaming about slitting his throat, after all. I also wondered why it was a problem drinking a ‘fifth’ of Kool-Aid before driving…

The Real Marshall Mathers? This isn’t the kind of book that is going to try to figure out what the ‘real’ Marshall Mathers is like (many of these are available of that’s your thing), but it’s worth spending a bit of time at this early point to at least take a look at how Mathers wants to be seen. We’ll cover this in more detail in part three when analysing his lyrics in terms of rhetoric, but for now, let’s turn away from the lyrics to the two books Eminem has attached his name to: Angry Blonde (2000) and The Way I am (with Sasha Jenkins, 2009). It’s a bit of a stretch to call these autobiographies per se, as Angry Blonde is essentially a lyric book with some comments added (essentially Genius Lyrics before it was invented), and The Way I am contains more photographs than it does text. But both at least give us a glimpse into the information he deems important enough to commit to the page. The two-page introduction to Angry Blonde alternates between humorous: ‘Hi Kids. Do you like lyrics? Do you like reading weird shit that’ll make your eyes bulge out of their sockets?’ (Eminem, 2000: 3), playful: ‘This book is made by Slim Shady, from the mind of Marshall Mathers as seen from Eminem’s point of view. Got it?’ (2000: 3), defensive, e.g. ‘I don’t hate gay people,

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I just don’t stray that way’ (2000: 4), sincere: ‘I take [emceeing] extremely seriously’, and self-critical: ‘I always listen to my shit with the mentality that I could have done it better.’ (2000: 4) He may not have meant it this way, but this introduction pretty well mirrors much of his output to this point, and we often see all of the adjectives above contained within single songs (see ‘Just Don’t Give a Fuck’, ‘Rock Bottom’, ‘Role Model’, ‘I’m Back’, ‘Marshall Mathers’ etc.) It’s also worth noting that this introduction is flanked by a full-page childhood photograph of Mathers, wide-­ eyed, smiling, dressed in a smart buttoned shirt… the picture of innocence in other words. Talking as he does about how his lyrics have been over-­ analysed, misinterpreted, misunderstood, and that he’s ‘just using the pen to express’ (2000: 3) himself, the link between Mathers the innocent child and Mathers the innocent artist who’s been unfairly criticised is very apparent. In among dozens of other photographs in The Way I am book, we are afforded an intriguing insight into Eminem’s inner sanctum via a photograph (and series of close-ups of specific areas from the same image) of his home office. We see a desk, a chair behind it, a bookcase, and a wall decorated with a number of framed images. Upon the desk that stands in the foreground sit five framed photographs, backs to the camera so we can only guess at the images they show, but on the wall behind it we see a concert poster for The Marshall Mathers LP tour, the image a close-up of Eminem’s huddled form from the alternative LP cover, advertising three dates at London Arena on February 9th and 10th 2001, both dates with ‘sold out’ stamped across them; a poster advertising the release of The Eminem Show album, the image a spotlight ‘E’ projected onto a night sky a la the Bat signal; A poster advertising a ‘Showtime: Live from New York City’ show, the image ‘Eminem’ written in a smashed glass graphic; an Eminem and 50 cent tour poster; an image of Eminem from 8 Mile; an image of Eminem in mid-shot saluting; a large image of 50 Cent pointing a gun at the camera; an image of Dr. Dre at the mixing desk; an image of D12 (and others) in a group shot. On the bookcase is the further framed image of Dr. Dre (signed, and with a message which is indecipherable). Also in the bookcase we find: Rocky Balboa from each of the five original Rocky films (all boxed); 3 figures of players from NBA’s Detroit Pistons’s Chris Webber (playing for Pistons 2006-2007), Rasheed Wallace (2004–2009), and Rip Hamilton (2002-2010); a ‘Slim Shady’ bobblehead; an Eminem action figure complete with dungarees and chainsaw (and optional Jason Vorhees mask) (boxed); Nike ‘Shady’ branded

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trainers; a model of Ben Grimm (The Thing) from Marvel’s Fantastic Four; a devil figure clad in dungarees and Jason Vorhees mask, holding a trident and chainsaw; 2 bottles of wine, both with images of Eminem on; a box of ‘The Rap Pack’ trading card packets (unopened). We also see a series of magazines (titles visible are Spin, The Face, Vibe), CDs (including his own and D12’s, Redman, Snoop Dogg, and a number of CR-Rs, but, quite surprisingly, Mariah Carey, Madonna, Roy Orbison, and sworn enemy Ja Rule!), and books (The Detroit Almanac, 1990 Guinness World Records, Black in America, The Lost Swords: The first triad; Tupac: Resurrection 1971-1996; Muhammed Ali biography, Jimmy’s Blues: Selected Poems by James Baldwin, and Andy Warhol: Little Electric Chair Paintings. There is also a selection of VHS tapes, and the among the visible titles are: four Muhammed Ali videos; The Life of Python DVD set (still in cellophane wrapping); ‘Welcome to Death Row’; D12 Fight Music ‘Rough 2’; ‘MTV TRL Fred Durst news piece’; ‘Kindergarten Celebration’ (the rest of the title cut off). It is, of course, impossible to determine to what extent the objects on show are authentic to the room, or are placed there for the purposes of the photograph. One would imagine that the inclusion of Ja Rule and Mariah Carey albums at least are very much tongue-in-cheek. But if we take the photograph at face value and assume that the objects there are authentic to the space and haven’t been planted there simply as mise en scene in a mocked-up PR stunt, we can see various elements of Eminem’s personality that also come across in his lyrics. We have his obsession with his home town (The Detroit Almanac), his love of hip-hop (seen through his CD collection and Tu-Pac book), his fascination with violence and the macabre (Andy Warhol: Little Electric Chair Paintings), his vanity and pride (poster, CDs, action figures, and a bobble-head of himself), his respect for Black culture (Black in America book), his loyalty to friends and colleagues (posters and CDs of 50-Cent and D12), his love of comic book culture (‘The Thing’ figurine and the bat-signal-esque ‘E’ on The Eminem Show poster), and sense of humour (the Ja Rule and Mariah Carey CDs). With no photographs of his children on display, it might be fair to assume that the frames on his desk contain them, and as they are what he is looking at when seated at his desk, are considered the most important thing in his life (based purely on my own opinion, seeing as, while writing this, seated at my own desk, it’s photographs of my own daughter that are in my direct eyeline).

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Eminem and hip-hop ‘[hip hop] spoke to me more than any music I had ever heard before.’ —Eminem on Hotboxin’ with Mike Tyson podcast.

The aforementioned photographs show Eminem’s love of Tupac, but he has cited a number of other influences through interviews and within his lyrics. In the song ‘Yah yah’, Eminem gives ‘shout-outs’ to a number of hip-hop artists, saluting Big L, K-Solo, Treach, Kool G Rap, Tony D, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Kool Moe Dee, Run-DMC, Ed O.G, EPMD, The D.O.C., Ice-T, Evil Dee, King Tee, UTFO, Public Enemy, Schoolly D, and Boogie Down Productions, citing YZ, Chi-Ali, Rakim, and Eric B as like his ‘therapy’, and Dr. Dre as like his ‘GPS’. Worthy of note here is the fact that although many of these artists became Eminem’s contemporaries by releasing new music at the same time as he was, they all preceded his own output and can therefore be seen as inspirations to him, and not just artists that he singles out as exemplars of the genre. Perhaps more indicative of where Eminem puts himself in the pantheon of great rappers, on the song ‘’Till I collapse’, he identifies a ‘list’ that counts Reggie, Jay-Z, Tupac and Biggie, Andre from OutKast, Jada, Kurupt, Nas’ and then himself. Despite this pretty extensive list of influences, it is LL Cool J that Eminem singles out as the artist who inspired him to write his own lyrics, so it’s worth spending a little time looking at the output Eminem would have heard during his formative years. LL Cool J released four albums between 1985 and 1990, the years when Eminem ranged between 13 and 18. Hodges and Sebald stress the importance of music during these years, saying that it is ‘part of the socializing force that influences how teenagers talk, dress, and act, how they feel, and what they think’ (2011: 316). They also point to music having the power to help teenagers deal with self and group identity, where ‘a shy, awkward, lonely youngster’ like Mathers suggests he was at that age, ‘can find solace in music’ (2011: 316). But as anyone who’s bought an edition of Mojo magazine and listened to the CD of ‘influential’ tracks chosen by a guest artist can testify, just because you like/respect/worship an artist doesn’t mean your music in any way mirrors theirs. Take LL Cool J. The lyrics on his first album are pretty inoffensive narratives about what a good rapper he is, how important he is to the genre (he refers to himself in the third person

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97 times in his first 4 albums on 33 out of 45 songs), and, to be honest, some pretty shmaltzy songs about love (e.g. ‘Your high-school year book under my pillow/ You walk by my window, I see your silhouette/ Candle light is what I desire’ from ‘I want you’ (LL Cool J 1985)). In these 54 songs he uses the words ‘fuck’ and motherfucker’ twice, uses thirteen misogynistic terms (‘ho’ etc. 10 times, ‘bitch’ twice, and ‘slutty’ once), no homophobic terms, and 40 sexual references to female body parts (mainly ‘butt’). Compare this to Eminem’s first four major label albums releases where he uses ‘fuck’ 254 times, ‘motherfucker’ 54 times, uses 136 misogynistic terms, 26 homophobic terms, but only 4 sexual references to female body parts. And all of this before we even listen to the sound of either one of them rapping, which is like comparing apples with oranges. In terms of content, the lyrics on Eminem’s first two albums have more in common with the swearing and violence-heavy work of NWA (and, indeed the subsequent solo work of Easy-E and Dr. Dre), but with a couple of significant twists. As Steve Berman points out his eponymous skit on The Marshall Mathers LP, ‘[Dr. Dre was] rapping about big-screen TV’s, blunts, 40’s and bitches; You’re rapping about homosexuals and Vicodin’. (Eminem 2000d)

‘Eminem is the only rapper widely recognized by black audiences as a bona fide hip-hop artist…’ Pang 2021: 73). In the 3rd round of 2000 HBO Blaze Battle, E-Dub (a Black MC from Detroit) faces off against Eyedea (a white MC from Minnesota) (Alim et al. (eds.) 2009: 82) with E-Dub frequently framing Eyedea as a ‘White, middle-class suburban skater kid who shouldn’t be rapping because he lacks the credentials.’ (Alim et al. (eds.) 2009: 86). During his ‘spit’, however, ‘E-Dub’s allegation that Eyedea is a “light skinned Eminem” […] points up Eminem’s status within the Hip Hop community. Eminem is actually quite pale and blond so this latter comparison appears to confer on him an honorary Black status within Hip Hop.’ (Alim et al. (eds.) 2009: 87) Eminem’s arrival into the mainstream came during a ‘tremendous rise in popularity for rap music’, with Time magazine ‘announcing in 1999 that America had become a ‘hip-hop nation’: rap was now outselling all other genres, and hip-hop penetrated the mainstream in ways that other music cultures never had, influencing pop, Hollywood film, high-street fashion, advertising and even styles of business.’ (Harrison 2010: 81-82)

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‘Young people denied the social vision of their parents’ generation were drawn to rappers’ various messages of hope or displays of nihilistic bravado; whites, now 70 per cent of the market, consumed hip-hop’s images of blackness with a mixture of voyeurism and a genuine desire to identify with otherness; African Americans—especially young black men, who as a group faced disgracefully high levels of social exclusion—valued the music for its realism and critical force.’ Harrison 2010: 82

Within the wider hip-hop genre sit the subgenres ‘Gangsta’ rap, and Horrorcore, both of which Eminem sometimes has a foot in. In songs like ‘3am’, Eminem finds himself writing in the ‘horrorcore’ style, ‘a subgenre of gangster rap thematically mirroring horror cinema but combining supernatural, demonic, drug-induced, and psychotic imagery through explicit lyricism.’ (Donison 2019: 25). And although never writing about the ‘street criminal icons—thug, hustler, gangster, and pimp’ like ‘seminal gangsta’ (Rose 2008: 3) group N.W.A, Eminem does adhere to the ‘attendant violence, criminality, sexual “deviance,” and misogyny’ (Rose 2008: 3) synonymous with the ‘gangsta life’. Gangsta rap, although immensely popular has its detractors as well as its fans/ While Westhoff suggests that ‘gangsta rap has […] helped disenfranchised people gain a voice […encouraging] African-Americans to speak up’ (Westhoff 2017: 377) Harrison describes it as ‘a perverted form which has been encouraged by those who have always used the entertainment industry to exploit and project the negative stereotypical images to demean and depict African Americans as subhuman…’ (Harrison 2010: 85) ‘What has gangsta rap ultimately left us with? I’d say a popular culture with fewer restrictions, for better or for worse. On the downside, TV, music, and movies have become coarser: more cursing, more sex, and more violent images. Gangsta rap […] isn’t solely to blame for this, but it’s hard to argue that Eazy [E] and his disciples’ glamorization of gunplay and derogatory names for women, for example, haven’t spread outward.’ (Westhoff 2017: 377)

Eminem extols the virtues of hip hop as a power for good on ‘Sing for the moment’ and he’s certainly not alone in that thinking. An article in the i newspaper on the 18th August 2021 reported a charity that had been set

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up for young offenders to ‘write [rap verses] and then to perform [… as a] way for them beginning to unlock’, using ‘rap music […as] a powerful educational and therapeutic tool.’ (Burrell 2021) Of course, there will always be one thing that differentiates Eminem from his black contemporary artists, and that’s the use of the ‘n’ word. Used freely and frequently in other artists’ lyrics, it was, of course out of bounds for Eminem, but he does use the word in the song ‘So many styles’ (from a tape he made in 1993) where he raps: ‘There’s so many styles I might get thrown, and here’s a place where I like to roam/And all the girls that I like to bone/ Have the big butts, no they don’t, ‘cause I don’t like that nigga shit’ (Eminem, 1993) and also uses racist imagery in the song ‘Foolish Pride’ (from a leaked tape he made in 1988) where he raps ‘But Black girls only want your money cause they’re dumb chicks/ So I’ma say like this/ Don’t date a Black girl, take it as a diss’ (Eminem, 1988). Eminem himself addresses this in 2007s freestyle ‘Step right up’ where he says ‘it cannot be forgave’ (Eminem, 2007).

Content ‘If you get offended by words like Bitch, Ho, Sissy, Faggot, Homo, Lesbian, Fudge packer, Clit eater, all that shit like that, then you should turn this shit off right now […] we just like sayin’ shit like that, just to fuck with you.’ D12 ‘Another Public Service Announcement’.

In a 2015 study of ‘the 99 of the best-selling artists of all time […] Eminem topped the list with 8,818 unique words used’ (France 2015), followed by Jay Z, Tupac Shakur, Kanye West, and Bob Dylan. The dominance of hip-hop artists at the top of this list isn’t exactly surprising, seeing as ‘rap is by nature dense, given the focus on lyricism (France 2015), but it is eye-opening that Eminem was so far ahead of the others (nearly 2,000 more unique words than second place Jay Z), demonstrating that when it comes to vocabulary, Eminem’s years of reading the dictionary as a child (Cooper 2010) paid off via such lyrical dexterity. Such studies are to be taken with a pinch of salt, however, and the amount of lyrics much be taken into account when coming up with such figures. The bigger the artist’s catalogue, the more lyrics there are, and the higher likelihood of having more unique words than others with lesser output. Eminem’s studio

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albums alone contain close to 120,000 words and, including b-sides, guest appearances, freestyles, and unreleased tracks, this number jumps to around 223,000 words. When it comes to analysing the percentages of unique words per albums with similar word-counts, though, we might get a fairer and more accurate picture of how Eminem compares with his contemporaries. For example, Ja Rule’s Pain is Love album, released in the year between The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show, contains 16% of unique words compared to the 22% in both the aforementioned Eminem releases; Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter, released the same year as Encore is comprised of 14% unique words to Encore’s 20% (Eminem’s lowest studio album total); Drake’s Nothing was the Same weighs in at 17% compared with The Marshall Mathers LP 2’s 23% (both released in 2013); Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy has 22% compared with Kamikaze’s 25% (both released in 2018). Eminem’s studio albums, up to and including Music to be Murdered by, are lyrically dense overall, with an average of 9,950 words on each (excluding repeated hooks and choruses) if we include Infinity and 11,330 if we exclude it, with 2013s The Marshall Mathers LP 2 clocking in at nearly 14,000 words. To put this into context, The Beatles’ entire studio album output is only 8,000 words more than this. Even though hip-hop albums generally contain a much denser lyrical content than other music genres, Eminem albums tend to be wordier than that of his contemporaries or idols, significantly so in the case of Dr. Dre’s The Chronic (7,997 words), LL Cool J’s Bigger and Deffer (7,125), Nas’s Illmatic (6,090), Drake’s Nothing was the same (7,537), Nicki Minaj’s Queen (8,109) and Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy (6,942). Unsurprisingly, Eminem’s individual songs tend to be lyrically denser than other rap artists, as well, with The Marshall Mathers LP 2 averaging 913 words per song (excluding skits), more than double that of Nicki Minaj’s Queen (427) and almost double that of The Chronic (500). All this really implies is that Eminem potentially deems it more important than other artists to have room within his lyrics to develop stories and characters. We will see in Chap. 2, how Eminem has been able to tell stories within his lyrics that fit with the classic structures of film and literature and how working with a comparatively condensed format hasn’t prevented him from creating engrossing and effective narratives. More content also means the possibility for more controversy, though, and it is indeed rare for Eminem to be spoken of without a mention of the word ‘controversy’; a case in point being his Britannica entry where he is described as ‘one of the most-controversial and best-selling artists of the

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early 21st century.’ (Tikkanen 2021) ‘Eminem has been condemned as a misogynist, a nihilist and an advocate of domestic violence, principally in an editorial by Billboard editor in chief Timothy White, who attacked The Slim Shady LP as “making money by exploiting the world’s misery.”’ (Bozza 1999) In a 2021 article addressing TikTok users’ declaration that Eminem be ‘cancelled’, Reiss Smith sides with the rapper’s detractors, saying ‘Sadly, two decades into Eminem’s career, being held to account over his use of homophobic slurs and penchant for violent, misogynistic fantasies among other things has failed to stir any conscientious response, and certainly hasn’t resulted in Eminem actually being cancelled’, and suggesting that he is ‘protected—by the Oscars, by Elton John, and by his many, many fans.’ (Smith 2021). ‘The singer Marshall Mathers (Eminem) sets out precisely to threaten. His horrid, hooting stanzas seem to advocate violence against women, minorities, gays, and lesbians.’ (Lerer 2007: 233) In 2001, The Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation described The Marshall Mathers LP as ‘hate music’ and slammed it for encouraging ‘violence against gay men and lesbians.’ (Shaffer 2007: 6-7) Eminem’s defenders ‘understood… his rhymes were never taken as intentions to commit felonies; they remained words, shots fired on a battlefield where no one gets hurt’ (Bozza 2019: 236) and as he says himself in ‘Brainless’ are: ‘smoke and mirrors tactical practical jokes’ (2013). His mother says that ‘no one should take anything he says seriously […that he] doesn’t hate women or homosexuals and he’s not violent’ (Nelson 2008: 178) and just says these things in an attempt to gain notoriety and recognition. Eminem’s use of homophobic words (including the much-used ‘faggot’ or ‘fag’) reached a peak on The Marshall Mathers LP which contains 17 instances, fell for a while, increased again on The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (although some of these were used by his Matthew Mitchell ‘character’ to criticise previous usages) then trailed off dramatically in his last three studio album releases, with one usage on both Revival and Kamikaze and none at all on Music to be Murdered by (a first for him during his career). Overall, he has used homophobic slurs 67 times during his career, almost half of which occur on the two Marshall Mathers LPs. How much of this is used out of hatred for homosexual men, and how much is used purely to get a reaction isn’t clear. Mathers himself is aghast at the accusations levelled against him, but as an intelligent man must realise that to use such language will inevitably lead to such, whether he is or isn’t homophobic. What is certain is that he was exposed to homophobia at a young age, both through the music he listened to (with homophobia one of the ‘­…

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traditions entrenched in the machismo of the gangster pose’ (Bozza 2004: 115) and via members of his family, including Todd Nelson, his Uncle, who said that ‘I tried to teach him what a man should be… I’d get on to him about homosexuality, you know, boys go with girls and vice versa’ (Corbera 2004). Misogynistic references are far more common than homophobic ones in Eminem’s lyrics with a total of 456 uses during his career so far, peaking with The Marshall Mathers LP 2 which contains 73, but usage is frequent on every album release, including Music to be Murdered by which contains 37. Wernik (after Nietzsche) puts forward the theory that ‘everyone carries within him an image of woman that he gets from his mother; that determines whether he will honor women in general, or despise them, or be generally indifferent to them.’ (Wernik 2018: 78). In Eminem’s case, seeing as he says in ‘Crazy in Love’ that ‘every man grows up to marry his own mother/ which would explain why you’re such a motherfucking bitch’ (Eminem 2004a), his apparent contempt for women does indeed stem from his relationship with his mother. In a song otherwise dominated by a narrative designed solely to show off lyrical dexterity and a super-fast rapping style, Eminem touches upon this again in ‘Rap God’, suggesting that, given the ‘bitter hatred’ he once had for women, people should understand why he discriminates against women. Additionally, in 2017s ‘Offended’ he suggests that he is making progress in ‘cuttin’ back on women hate crimes’ (Eminem 2017a). In reality, the only female characters that appear in Eminem’s songs that haven’t been objectified, threatened, insulted, or appeared as part of violent fantasies, have been his daughters. Eminem’s use of ‘cuss’ or ‘swear’ words is suggestive of him being authentic to both the genre and his background (more on authenticity in Chap. 4), with hip hop’s ‘street language involv[ing] heavy swearing. (Mesiti 1993: 219) and according to his authorised biographer Anthony Bozza, Eminem ‘loves the word fuck’ using it ‘like a basketball player uses a dribble to get from here to there (Bozza 2004: 57). The inclusion of ‘fuck’ can sometimes serve ‘the expression of an emotion that is probably neither necessarily positive (like joy) nor negative (like indignation) but just strong: it adds an emotional charge to the whole utterance.’ (Löbner 2002: 33) The regularity with which Eminem uses such language in his lyrics shouldn’t come as a surprise, therefore, and he uses the words ‘fuck’

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(or variations of, e.g. ‘fucker’, ‘fucking’, ‘fucked’ etc.), ‘motherfucker’, and ‘cunt’—what I categorise as ‘category A swears—991 times during his entire lyrical output, with a career album high of 122 on The Marshall Mathers LP 2. Such usage isn’t overly high compared to other artists and is comparatively clean when compared to Dr Dre’s album The Chronic, with its 35 uses of ‘motherfucker’ helping it on its way to 1.9% category A swears per total lyrics compared to Eminem’s highest of 1.1% on The Marshall Mathers LP. Whether or not Marshall Mathers the person is homophobic or misogynistic is something those outside of his closest circle will never know, but Eminem the character/ artist/ alter ego/ cathartic device, or however we want to define him, certainly is. Over the years, Mathers has gone to some pains to defend his use of homophobic language, at one point saying that ‘for me the word “faggot” has nothing to do with sexual preference. I meant something like assholes or dickheads.’ (Eminem and Sasha 2009: 54) This might have a little more credence had he not also used the terms ‘homo’, ‘queer’, and ‘gay’ as insults frequently throughout his career. This isn’t just limited to Eminem, of course, and the hip hop genre in general is ‘often saturated with misogynistic, sexist, hyperviolent, homophobic, and hypermasculine themes’ (Oware 2018: 3), with homophobia continuing to be an issue. At the time of writing, in fact, the media is running numerous stories about how rapper ‘DaBaby regaled a Miami Rolling Loud audience with a vile quip about gay sex and AIDS between songs’ ((Jenkins 2021), but the outpouring of disgust does at least show progress is being made in eliminating such rhetoric. As to why Eminem received such an outpouring of disgust, is, according to Carson Daly, perhaps more to do with his race and widespread commercial appeal more than the actual content: ‘Here’s a white kid saying stuff that rappers had said for years before. But they looked at it as a problem that was happening over there. And now you’ve got this guy who looks like your son—you have suburban white American kids who are buying the records. He’s the new spokesman for a generation saying these controversial things. And I think all of a sudden it’s a problem.’ —Carson Daly, 2011 (Serrano 2015: 133)

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Responsibility ‘With great power comes absolutely no responsibility’ —Rhyme or Reason (2013)

If we believe everything that Eminem claims he has done in his songs then he has shot his manager, murdered his wife, raped a women’s swim team, ‘disintegrated’ newborn babies with formaldehyde and cyanide, performed a home abortion on a woman with a wire hanger that he has just ‘dropkicked’, abducted and murdered Britney Spears, and dismembered his cousin in a bathtub before drinking his bathwater. But just because such instances are fictional, does it mean they’re acceptable images to inflict upon a mass audience? Gottschall observes that ‘knowing that fiction is fiction doesn’t stop the emotional brain from processing it as real… (Gottschall 2013: 62) and that ‘long-term studies suggest a relationship between the amount of violent fiction consumed in childhood and a person’s actual likelihood of behaving differently in the real world.’ (Gottschall 2013: 150). But should Eminem be expected to write with this in mind? Do songwriters have a duty of care regarding the kind of work they put out? This is a discussion that has been ongoing for decades and is unlikely to disappear any time soon. One side of the argument is that songwriters can say whatever they want because their lyrics are art, they are artists, and art equals freedom of expression. The other side of the argument is that words have consequences and songwriters need to be responsible for the kind of messages they’re putting out to the world (or, at the very least be aware of the potential consequences their words may have). Eminem is acutely aware of this discussion and addresses it on a number of occasions in his lyrics and in interviews. Shortly after the release of The Slim Shady LP, in an interview with Rolling Stone Eminem said: ‘My album isn’t for younger kids to hear […] It has an advisory sticker, and you must be eighteen to get it. That doesn’t mean younger kids won’t get it, but I’m not responsible for every kid out there. I’m not a role model, and I don’t claim to be.’ (Bozza 1999) But it’s not just ‘kids’ that can be affected by his lyrical content. Mather’s mother Debbie Nelson recounts this incident at one of Eminem’s gigs at the Detroit Silver Dome: ‘The show had barely begun when Marshall launched into an attack on me. He stood on the stage, shouted, ‘Fuck you, Debbie!’ and made an obscene gesture with

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his finger. A spotlight spun around the audience, then fell on me. The crowd erupted, some drunks behind us started jeering and swearing at me. I was rescued by a reporter […] ‘You’ll get hurt down there,’ she said. ‘ A guy was pouring beer down your back.’ (Nelson 2008: 187)

And his ex-wife Kim, in relation to an incident at a concert he knew she was attending, where he performed ‘Kim’: ‘…I couldn’t take it… I immediately left after that… I went upstairs to the bathroom and slit my wrists.’ (ABC News 2021). Although attacking Kim and his mother less in his later career (even apologising to them in ‘Bad Husband’ and ‘Headlights’ respectively) and gradually using less homophobic and misogynistic slurs as he ages, Eminem’s ability to offend hasn’t gone away completely. In a scathing review of Music to be Murdered by Side B, Forbes Journalist Bryan Rolli says (with only a hint of tongue in cheek) that ‘It only took Eminem 40-plus years to stop using homophobic slurs on his albums; perhaps he’ll stop using the R-word by the time he reaches 60.’ (Rolli 2020) Indeed, Eminem has used the word retard/ retarded etc. (a word whose dictionary definition includes the words ‘dated’ and ‘offensive’) regularly during his career, 23 times in all, and, as Rolli suggests, is still using it up to the time of writing this.

References Sources ABC news (2021). Kim Mathers talks about Eminem’. https://www.youtube. com/watch?app=desktop&v=lRExjF0dSQo (accessed 12 September 2021). All top everything (2021). ‘Top 10 best-selling rappers of all time’. https://www. alltopeverything.com/best-­selling-­rappers-­of-­all-­time/ (accessed 24 July 2021). Alim, H.; Ibrahim, A.; Pennycook, A. (eds.). (2009). Global Linguistic Flows. Abingdon: Routledge. Bozza, A. (2004). Whatever you say I am. London: Corgi. Bozza, A. (2019). Not Afraid: The evolution of Eminem. London: Blink. Bradley, A. & DuBois, A. (eds.). 2010. The Anthology of Rap. New Haven: Yale University Press. Bozza, Anthony. 1999. Eminem Blows Up. https://www.rollingstone.com/ music/music-­news/eminem-­blows-­up-­91979/ (accessed 10 July 2021).

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Burrell, I. (2021). ‘Former offenders being offered a life of rhyme’. i newspaper. Wednesday 18th August 2021. Cooper. A. (2010). ‘Rhymetime With Eminem’. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=_kQBVneC30o (accessed 31 July 2021). Corbera, M. (Dir.) (2004). ‘The Story of Eminem – Full Documentary’ https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEfIiGiPJ6I (accessed 8 July 2021). Donison, J. “Horror Movies on Wax: Examining Violence in ‘90’s Horrorcore Rap.” (2019). ‘Intersections: Graduate and Conference Exhibition’. https:// iscs-­c onfer ence.com/wp-­c ontent/uploads/2019/10/ISCS_2019 ConferenceProceedings.pdf (accessed 7 July 2021). Eckstein, L. (2010). Reading Song Lyrics. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Edwards, P. (2013). How to Rap 2: Advanced Flow and Delivery Techniques. United States: Chicago Review Press, Incorporated. Eminem (2000d). ‘The Real Slim Shady’. In: The Marshal Mathers LP [CD]. Aftermath; Interscope; Shady. Eminem with Sasha Jenkins (2009). The Way I am. New York: Plume Books. France, L.R. (2015). ‘Eminem has music’s biggest vocabulary, study says’. https://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/24/entertainment/eminem-­kanye-­bob-­ dylan-­study-­music-­feat/index.html (accessed 31 July 2021). Foden, G. (2001) ‘Just how good is he?’ https://www.theguardian.com/ books/2001/feb/06/poetry.features (accessed 16 June 2021). Frisicks-Warren, B. (2006). I’ll Take You There: Pop Music and the Urge for Transcendence, London: Continuum. Gottlieb, R. and Kimbal, R. (eds.) (2000). Reading Lyrics. New  York: Pantheon Books. Gottschall, J (2013) The Storytelling animal, New York: Marriner Books. Harrison, C. (2010). American Culture in the 1990s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Hodges, D.A. & Sebald, D.C. (2011). Music in the Human Experience. London: Routledge. Hopps, G. (2009). Morrissey: The Pageant of His Bleeding Heart. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Academic. Jenkins, C. (2021). ‘I Don’t See an End to This’. https://www.vulture.com/ article/essay-­dababy-­lil-­nas-­x-­homophobia-­hip-­hop.html (accessed 2 August 2021). Jimenez I, Kuusi T, Doll C.  Common Chord Progressions and Feelings of Remembering. Music & Science. January 2020. https://doi. org/10.1177/2059204320916849 (accessed 13 July 2021). Lerer, S. (2007). “Ready for the Funk: African American English and Its Impact.” Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language. Columbia University Press. www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/lere13794.20. (accessed 5 May 2021). Levitin, D. (2008). This is your brain on music. London: Atlantic Books. LL Cool J, (1985). ‘I want you’. In: Radio [CD]. Def. Jam; Columbia.

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Löbner, S. (2002). Understanding Semantics. London: Hodder Arnold. McDuffie, C. (2020). 50 Rappers who changed the world. London: Hardie Grant Books. Mesiti, P. (1993). It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll But-. Australia: ANZEA. Nelson, D. (2008). My Son Marshall, My son Eminem. London: John Blake. Pang, C.C. “Catullus, Hip-Hop, and Masculinity.” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, vol. 25, no. 1, 2017, pp. 61–94. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/arion.25.1.0061. Accessed 5 May 2021. Oware, M. (2018). I Got Something to Say: Gender, Race, and Social Consciousness in Rap Music. Germany: Springer International Publishing. Partridge, C. (2015). Mortality and Music. London: Bloomsbury. Rolli, B. (2020). ‘With ‘Music To Be Murdered By – Side B,’ Eminem Has Finally Exhausted His Surprise Album Gimmick’. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ bryanrolli/2020/12/22/with-­music-­to-­be-­murdered-­byside-­b-­eminem-­has-­ finally-­exhausted-­his-­surprise-­album-­gimmick/?sh=3590499d2a73 (accessed 24 July 2021). Rose, T. (2008). The Hip Hop Wars. New York: Basic Books. Ruiz, M. (2017). ‘Eminem: Revival’. https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/ eminem-­revival/ (accessed 7 July 2021). Serrano, S. (2015). The Rap Year Book: The Most Important Rap Song From Every Year Since 1979, Discussed, Debated, and Deconstructed. United States: ABRAMS. Shaffer, T. (2007). Explicit Content: Why You Should Listen to the Shady Side of Hip Hop. United Kingdom: Lulu.com. Shepherd, J.E. (2015). ‘Tyler, the Creator on being banned from the UK: ‘I’m being treated like a terrorist’. https://www.theguardian.com/music/ musicblog/2015/sep/01/tyler-­the-­creator-­comments-­banned-­uk-­freedom-­ of-­speech (accessed 14 August 2021). Skinner, T. (2021). ‘Eminem’s ‘Curtain Call: The Hits’ breaks Billboard chart history’ https://www.nme.com/news/music/eminems-­curtain-­call-­the-­hits-­ breaks-­billboard-­chart-­history-­2907240 (accessed 7 July 2021). Sloan, N, & Harding, C. (2020) Switched on Pop: How Popular Music works, and why it matters. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, R. (2021). ‘Eminem declared ‘cancelled’ for his toxic lyrics, yet again. His stans aren’t happy’. https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/03/03/eminem-­ cancelled-­trending-­tiktok-­gen-­z-­millenials/ (accessed 8 July 2021). Thomson, G. (2008). I Shot a Man in Reno. London: Continuum. Tikkanen, A. (2021). ‘Eminem’. https://www.britannica.com/biography/ Eminem (accessed 24 July 2021). Webb, J. (1998). Tunesmith. New York: Hyperion. Wernik, U. (2018). Nietzsche Trauma and Overcoming: The Psychology of the Psychologist. United States: Vernon Art and Science Incorporated. Westhoff, B. (2017). Original Gangstas. New York: Hachette. Zuckerkandl, V. (1973). ‘The Meaning of Song’, in Clayton, M. (ed.) (2008). Music, Words and Voice: A reader. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

CHAPTER 2

Eminem and Story

This section will look at Eminem’s songs in terms of their ‘storytelling’, analysing how lyricists needs to condense content to fit the short word count pop songs demand, how they can include ‘cultural cues’ to create shortcuts to meaning and depth, how they can write narratives across single songs, song pairs, single albums, album pairs, tell multiple stories within one song, or use their whole career as one big storytelling exercise. The section will also explore visual storytelling via album art and music video and look at how this ‘additional’ information fits with or juxtaposes the lyrics themselves. Levitin says that ‘one characteristic of poetry and lyrics, compared to ordinary speech or writing, is compression of meaning. Meaning tends to be densely packed, conveyed in fewer words that we would normally use in conversation or prose. The compression of meaning invites us to interpret, to be participants in the unfolding of the story’ (Levitin 2008: 26). The lyrics of a popular music song, therefore, requires an editing of material to make it fit into a digestible timeframe and recognisable structure (particularly if it is being aimed at a mass audience), and the art of brevity, the boiling down of complex themes and arguments into the three-minute pop song is a test of skill, making good lyricists ‘the Swiss watchmakers of music and literature’ (Webb 1998: 38). The need for songwriters to structure their songs in a recognisable way is described by Blume as ‘analogous to using proper grammar and punctuation to communicate our ideas better when we speak or write’ (Blume 2004: 3). In order for a lyricist to be © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 G. Fosbraey, Reading Eminem, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79626-6_2

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able to tell a coherent and engrossing story, therefore, the lyricist needs to edit a narrative in order to limit the song’s running time to something palatable to listeners, especially modern listeners whose ‘attention span is narrowing due to the amount of information that is presented to [them]’ (McClinton 2019). Kurt Vonnegut advises that ‘if a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out’ (Vonnegut, 1985: 33), and given the importance of every word in a song, this is even more pertinent when writing lyrics. With regard to the act of brevity requiring more effort, Woodrow Wilson once said about his speeches ‘“If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now”’ (Nelles 2012: 87). Raymond Carver says that the short story refers to ‘the things that are left out, that are implied…’ (Cox 2005: 2), and this can also be the case in song lyrics. In Eminem’s case, ‘Stan’ is an exemplar of a lyricist’s ability to use the short lyrical form to create a story that has enough actual content to keep us entertained, but enough ‘gaps’ to keep us intrigued long after the song has finished. If we look at the photograph of Eminem’s hand-written lyric sheet for ‘Stan’ in his 2009 book The Way I am, we can see the amount of editing that has been done, the words and sentences scribbled out, the notes to self that say ‘or something’ that serve as line holders until better ones can be found. One of the lines ‘I get so bored and lonely’ (Eminem and Jenkins 2009: 211) appears next to another ‘just to chat’, but the former is cut in the final version so the line scans ‘anyways, I hope you get this, man, hit me back/ Just to chat’ (Eminem 2000a). Other lines like ‘girlfriend nervous’, ‘sabotaged dad divorced’, and ‘he was such a good kid’ (Eminem & Jenkins: 211) are in Eminem’s draft and serve as more developed back stories that Eminem hints at in the final version but doesn’t say explicitly. Stephen King suggests that ‘the most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting. Stick to the parts that are, and don’t get carried away with the rest’ (King 2001: 272), and in ‘Stan’, Eminem cuts out most of Stan’s backstory (and ALL of Stan’s girlfriend’s), so we are left only with the ‘interesting’ parts. The skilled songwriter is able to expertly ‘play’ the format in order to quickly set the scene, creating atmosphere and mood in the space of a few precious sections. The pathetic fallacy technique of using the rain at the start of ‘Stan’ to represent sadness is a prime example of this, as is the children reciting the pledge of allegiance at the start of ‘Mosh’ as missiles explode around them, or the sound of crickets and

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digging at the start of ‘’97 Bonnie and Clyde’. In this way, Eminem is drawing upon techniques used frequently in radio where the ‘sound effect can describe something succinctly and quickly, using airtime economically because it can release precious seconds for something else’ (Starkey 2004: 192). Indeed, if we look at some of Eminem’s Skits, they actually have more in common with radio than they do song, with ‘Tonya’, The Parking Lot’, and ‘Stepdad’ all including the elements of tension, atmosphere, and soundscape we’d find in a radio drama. Although ‘Mathers expresses himself creatively through his lyrics’ (Eminem, 2000: 3) his songs are still subject to similar formatting restrictions in that only so many words can palatably fit within the song format. In their 2017 paper ‘Analysis of Billboard’s Top 100 Songs and Lyrics (1964-2015)’ Hsu and Xu give the ‘average number of unique words per song’ as 346.413 in the 1990s, 453.563 in the 2000s, and 244.785 in the 2010ss (Hsu and Xu 2017), giving an average of 348.25 during the period Eminem has been releasing music. Although Eminem himself often goes well above this average, and ‘is Number Uno when it comes to the number of words used in songs by 93 of the best selling artists of all time’ (Greenwood 2015), even his world record for most words in a song with Rap God at 1,560 (Guardian Music 2014) falls below The New Yorker’s minimum amount of 2,000 words for a short story, a format which, like lyrics ‘distils or condenses… [and]…captures the essence of an experience’ (Cox 2005: 2). Song lyrics, therefore, have more in common with what Nelles identifies as ‘“microfiction” [with] Raymond Carver’s “Popular Mechanics” (434 words, perhaps the quintessential microstory), Julio Cortázar’s “A Continuity of Parks” (639 words), Carolyn Forché’s “The Colonel” (324 words), and Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” (660 words)’ (Nelles 2012: 8) being exemplars of the form. Such ‘hints’ at bigger narratives and characterisations tie in with Lee’s suggestion that even the shortest text ‘refers to a larger cultural context the story is being built upon (or into), without including any of it into the text’ (Lee 2005: 10). ‘While longer narrative forms rely on establishing complex and detailed patterns to convey their sense, the miniature [or microfiction] deploys a “field of familiar signs”—generic characters and situations, historically and culturally specific events or objects—which act as ciphers for large amounts of implicit information which has been carefully condensed.’ (Botha 2016: 17)

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We frequently see such behaviours within Eminem’s songs as he deploys ‘familiar signs’ as follows (full list in Appendix 1): Generic settings: e.g. Hospital, school, home, fast-food restaurants, shops, nightclubs Pop culture references (via prominent figures): e.g. pop stars, actors, sportsmen, politicians, religious leaders, serial killers, painters, journalists Pop culture references (via fictional characters): e.g. cartoon characters, superheroes, mythological figures, fairytale characters, characters from films Pop culture references (via entertainment media): e.g TV shows, bands, toys, video games, films, books Historically and culturally specific events: e.g. Newsworthy events from Eminem’s own life, terrorist attacks, celebrity deaths, murders, alleged affairs, celebrity criminality References to his own previous work: e.g. passing negative judgement on the album Relapse (on ‘Not Afraid’ and ‘Cinderella Man’); boasting about the album The Marshall Mathers LP (on ‘Rhyme or Reason’); re-­ thinking his position on previous opinions (e.g. on ‘Headlights’ apologising to his mother for how she is depicted in ‘Cleanin’ out my closet’); bemoaning the lack of critical acclaim of Revival (On ‘Greatest’ and ‘Premonition (Intro)); and creating sequels (‘Bad Guy) or prequels (‘Kim’). A song, much like short form theatre or film ‘has no time in which to develop character and situations […and] characters must be flashed on the audience […] like figures passing a window’ (Dolley and Walford 2015: 3), and this perhaps explains why Eminem repeats characters so often, and draws so heavily on celebrities: these are characters we already know so the issue of development isn’t an issue. As such, we see a number of recurring (named) characters in his songs, e.g. his mother (appearing in 57 songs), his father (22), Kim (29), and Hailie (48), OR a series of Named public figures, e.g. Christopher Reeve, Amy Winehouse, Kim Kardashian, Hillary and Bill Clinton, George Bush, OJ Simpson. Each of these techniques allows quicker access to the settings, narratives, backdrops, and characters Eminem is putting forward. We don’t need (and don’t have time) to gradually enter the text of a song like we might with a novel or a film: interaction must be instant, and all surplus material cut. Even rhymes function as ‘familiar signs’ here, working ‘by establishing a habit of expectation in listeners’ minds, conditioning them

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to identify patterns of sound, to connect words the mind instantly recognizes as related yet distinct’ (Bradley 2009: 49) and like most hip-hop songs, Eminem uses a multitude of rhymes types and sequences in every song.

Career Mode: Life as Story ‘In a circular process, the body of a performer’s work endows that performer’s personality with a unity, just as the presumption of that unity gives meaning and coherence to the body of work.’ (Horner and Swiss 1999: 202)

Before we look at how Eminem creates narratives within individual songs, let’s look at other ways stories can be identified within his body of work, starting with the biggest (and most obvious one): his biography. The lyrical stories of Eminem’s ‘life’ (ignoring for a moment the veracity of such stories, which we’ll look at later in this chapter) have been a major part of his appeal, and his continued commercial success suggests that the public are still caught up enough in his story to see what happens next. As a major artist with very little social media presence—almost unheard of in 2021—his lyrics remain the only way fans can gain an insight into what has been happening in Eminem’s world, and as someone who loves to play with reality (and, indeed, the reactions of his listeners) this plays right into Eminem’s hands and allows him to remain a controversial figure as he blurs the lines between truth and fiction (more on this later). If we look at the personal narratives that are present within Eminem’s lyrics, we have Eminem’s entire life on display, ranging from him being a couple of months old in ‘Cleanin’ out my Closet’ to him in the present day via Music to be Murdered by Side B, which sees Eminem capturing the zeitgeist in ‘Alfred’s Theme’ by addressing how he’s dealing with Covid 19 (complete with him singing ‘Happy birthday’ while washing his hands in order to meet the recommended washing time). We can actually see Eminem’s career progression fit with the classic three act structure: Act 1: Inciting incident (where our character has a flaw or a need); Act 2: The journey (replete with forces of antagonism); Act 3: Crisis—Climax— Resolution (where we see the final battle)’ (Yorke 2014: 30).

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In Infinite, Eminem is longing for that big break to take him out of the poverty of his home town (his need); We then go on the journey with him from The Slim Shady LP to Encore where he has seemingly achieved his needs, but is met with the forces of antagonism along the way (his hatred of fame, his struggles with Kim and his mother, his developing dependency on drugs) then we come to the crisis of Relapse where Eminem’s drug addiction has resulted in a near-death experience and he has lost his best friend and mentor Proof, culminating in Recovery where he makes peace with his sobriety and relishes his second chance. We can expand this by applying Jule Selbo’s 11 steps for narrative structure (Fink 2014: 34-35) to the ‘career story’ Eminem recounts through his lyrics. Act 1 1. Character’s want-need is established, and why’: unsuccessful rapper Mathers wants to escape the poverty of his life to provide a better life for his daughter—seen in ‘It’s OK’, ‘Rock Bottom’, ‘If I had’, ‘Mockingbird’, ‘Yellow Brick Road’ 2. Character logically goes for it’: Mathers attempts to make it as a rap artist—seen in ‘Lose Yourself’, ‘White America’, ‘Mockingbird’, ‘Castle’ 3. Character is denied’: Mathers’s first album Infinite is rejected by major labels—seen in ‘White America’ and ‘Castle’ Act 2A 4. Character gets second opportunity’—After the disappointment of Infinity, Eminem is given a second opportunity through Dr. Dre— seen in ‘White America’ and ‘Mockingbird’ 5. Character experiences conflicts about taking advantage of second opportunity: moral, emotional, physical.’: Eminem struggles with how fame and media attention interferes with his relationship with his daughter—seen in ‘The Way I am’, ‘Mockingbird’, and ‘When I’m gone’ 6. Character goes for it’—Eminem embraces his infamy and seeks to be as offensive as possible—seen in ‘Under the Influence’, ‘Kill You’, and ‘Criminal’

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ACT 2B 7. All goes well’: Eminem becomes a massive star—seen in ‘Stepping Stone’, ‘Quitter’ (with D12), ‘White America’, and ‘Greatest’ 8. All falls apart’: Eminem becomes dependent on prescription medication and alcohol and drops away from the public eye—see in in ‘When I’m Gone’, ‘Dr West’, and ‘Castle’ 9. Conflict rises or descends to a crisis point’: Eminem’s drug habit becomes a full-blown addiction, where he lies to his family and stashes his drugs in various hiding places around the house—seen in ‘Déjà vu’ ACT 3 10. Conflict intensifies to create final climax’: Eminem almost dies from drug overdose—seen in ‘Mr. Mathers (Skit)’ and ‘Déjà Vu’ 11. Truth comes out (resolution)’: Eminem address his addiction and speaks about his continuing sobriety—seen in ‘Talkin’ 2 Myself’ and ‘Zeus’ (where he speaks of being sober for eleven years) Eminem’s career ‘story’ involves plenty of what Vogel refers to as ‘reversals of fortune […] the abrupt overturning of a character’s fortune, a change of luck or circumstances that switches the prevailing conditions from negative to positive or vice versa’ (Vogler 2007: 319). On Eminem’s narrative ‘journey’, told via his own lyrics, we see the following positive to negative (and vice versa) reversals of fortune (again, overlooking veracity and listed in lifetime chronology, not the order in which these events were covered in his lyrics): Negative: • Eminem’s father abandons him and his mother (see ‘Cleanin’ out my closet’; ‘Headlights’; ‘Rhyme or Reason’) • Eminem grows up in poverty, moving from place to place (see ‘Headlights’; ‘My darling’; ‘Our house’) • Eminem is subjected to mental abuse from his mother, physical abuse from his stepfather, and is bullied at school (see ‘Brain Damage’; ‘Stepfather’; ‘Cleanin’ out My Closet’; ‘My Mom’)

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To positive: • Uncle Ronnie introduces him to hip-hop (see ‘Groundhog Day’) • Meets Proof (see ‘Yellow Brick Road’) To negative: • As an adult he works unrewarding jobs for little pay (see ‘If I had’; ‘Mockingbird’ To positive: • Meets Kim and they later have Hailie To negative: • His first album ‘flops’ (see ‘Castle’) • Eminem and Kim split up (see ‘Mockingbird’; ‘Bad Husband’; ‘Puke’) To positive: • Eminem gets ‘discovered’ by Dr. Dre and his career takes off (see ‘White America’) To negative: • Eminem faces a backlash from the media, the FCC, and various organizations over the content of his lyrics (see ‘Cleanin’ out my closet’; ‘Without Me’; ‘The Way I am’; ‘Kill You’) To positive: • ‘Sales go through the roof’ (see ‘Stepping Stone’; ‘Quitter’ ((with D12)); ‘White America’; ‘Greatest’) To negative: • Eminem sued by his mother and prosecuted for the assault of John Guerra (see ‘The Kiss (skit)’; ‘Hailie’s Song’; ‘Without Me’)

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To positive: • Eminem wins an Academy Award (see ‘So much better’; ‘Little Engine’; ‘Symphony In H’) To negative: • Develops a drug addiction and has a near-death experience (see ‘Going Through Changes’; ‘Déjà vu’; ‘Mr. Mathers (Skit)’; ‘Arose’) To positive: • Eminem’s ‘comeback’ and sobriety (see ‘Bagpipes From Baghdad’; ‘Zeus’; ‘Talkin’ 2 Myself’; ‘Not Afraid’) • Eminem makes peace with his mother (see ‘Headlights’) • Eminem apologises to Kim (see ‘Bad Husband’) To negative: • Eminem’s album Revival poorly received (see ‘Greatest’; ‘Normal’; ‘Em Calls Paul (Skit) from Kamikaze; ‘Chloraseptic’) To positive: • Eminem bounces back with Kamikaze, cementing his ‘G.O.A.T’ status (see ‘Premonition (Intro)’; ‘The Ringer’; ‘Greatest’; ‘Lucky You’.) • Re-stating his relevance and ‘G.O.A.T’ status (see ‘Godzilla’; ‘You Gon’ Learn’; ‘Unaccommodating’; continuing his hatred toward his father (see ‘Leaving Heaven’)

Continued Narrative Threads Via Skits Although Skits only became widespread in hip-hop in the late 1980s and early 1990s, for their origins, ‘one might look back at Stevie Wonder’s 1973 “Livin’ for the City” in which he arrives on the bus in New York City and is asked to carry a package across the street. (Hess 2007: 275) Skits have been used in a number of different ways since their inception, from the ‘staged interludes […of] many Wu-Tang-Clan-related projects’ which augmented the music’s ‘cryptic, cinematic feel’ to the ‘disturbing

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scenarios of racists cops, drive-by-murders, and the occasional blow job’ in Dr. Dre’s and Ice Cube’s ‘very lurid social commentary’ (Rubin and Aaron 1999: 95). Producer Prince Paul said that he used skits on De la Soul’s debut album 3 feet high and still rising ‘so you’d get more of a sense of their personality and feel a little closer to them’ (Rubin and Aaron 1999: 95). And this, especially in his early career, is how Eminem used his skits: allowing the listener the experience of almost eavesdropping in on various episodes and getting fly on the wall/ behind the scenes access to his life. Eminem includes a number of Skits on his albums (from The Slim Shady LP all the way to Kamikaze, skipping Recovery and Revival along the way) where he is engaged in dialogue with a number of different personas, often in staffed reality settings where these external characters play versions of themselves, and Eminem plays a version of himself, too. As storytelling devices, these Skits serve as comic interludes both as individual tracks, but also as a collective narrative spanning over a decade. Steve Berman first appeared on an Eminem album as ‘himself’ in 2000s The Marshall Mathers LP before reprising his role in an ongoing narrative on 2002s The Eminem Show and 2009s Relapse. All three tracks were entitled ‘Steve Berman’ and featured Eminem in conversation with the real life vice Chairman of Interscope records, the label Eminem was signed to, being called into his office where an argument over the current record ensued. In the 2000 ‘Steve Berman’ track, Eminem is called into Berman’s office to be told how unsuitable the record is: ‘Either change the record or it’s not coming out!’ (2000d) he exclaims, as Eminem leaves the office. The next time we visit Steve Berman is two years later on The Eminem Show, where we are met with a scenario similar to the first: Eminem is summoned into Berman’s office, knocking (thus re-establishing the hierarchy), then letting out an audible sigh before entering. As he does so, we hear Berman on the phone to Dr Dre. saying ‘it’s ridiculous, I can’t believe it’, (2002d) before ringing off and once again offering Eminem a seat. Berman then begins to talk in a similar way about this album as he did with the previous one, saying ‘this is by far the most…’ (2002d) but is cut off by Eminem drawing a gun and shooting him. As he groans on the floor, Berman finishes his sentence: ‘…incredible thing I’ve ever heard,’ (2002d) and the Skit finishes. Even as a 33 second audio clip, it carries with it a complete narrative. It is what Booker would define as an ‘Overcoming the Monster’ story (Booker 2004: 21-29), with Eminem cast in the role of underdog hero to Berman’s Corporate Monster, in what McKee says defines as a ‘Classical Design’ structure, with ‘Causality’ arising from

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Berman’s words leading Eminem to shot him; a ‘Closed Ending’ with Berman shot and presumably dying; told in ‘Linear Time’ (the 33 second episode moves linearly from beginning to end without any jumps); with an ‘External Conflict’ (Eminem vs Berman); ‘Single Protagonist’ (Eminem); Consistent Reality (it all happens in the reality of the story); and an ‘Active Protagonist’ (Eminem) (McKee 1999: 45). The three ‘episode’ series of Steve Berman Skits culminates with 2009s Relapse. Once again, we have the familiar set-up of Eminem entering Berman’s office. This time, however, we have evidence of even more hierarchy via Eminem being shown in by a receptionist, and Berman being referred to as ‘Mr’ Berman while Eminem is simply ‘Eminem’. As with the previous two Skits, Eminem is positive (‘Steve! Good to see ya, man.’, 2009c), and Berman negative (‘Well, look who decided to show his face!, 2009c). The previous Skit is referred to, giving a sense of continuity within the overall narrative, and also drawing out maximum humour as Eminem apologises for shooting Berman before remarking ‘Are you wearing a bulletproof vest?’ (2009c). This Skit is also heavy on self-deprecation, with Berman saying ‘Let me guess, another album about: “Poor me! I’m so famous that it’s ruined my rich little life…’ (2009c). ‘Self-deprecation can be an effective way to increase others’ approval and liking…’ (DeLamater and Collett 2019), endearing Eminem to us still further. Add to this the fact that he’s overcome his demons and returned with not one but two albums, and he’s very much cast as the hero of the piece once again. This Skit also pre-empts the next track, ‘Undergound’, which begins with Eminem saying ‘A lot of people ask me/ Where the fuck I’ve been last few years.’ (2009d)

Different Types of Story In his book The Seven Basic Plots, Booker puts forward the idea that every story ever written fits into the following seven categories: Overcoming the monster Rags to Riches The Quest Voyage and Return Comedy Tragedy Rebirth

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In Eminem’s lyrics we can apply these in the following ways: Overcoming the Monster Although Booker’s own examples of this story type tend towards the kind of monster we see in Greek Mythology or Fairy Tales, the OED definition he supplies for ‘monster’ alludes to ‘a person of inhuman and horrible cruelty or wickedness’, so allows us to apply songs like ‘Stepfather’, where Eminem beats his abusive stepfather to death with an aluminium bat, and ‘Brain Damage’, where he gets his revenge on the bully who’s been tormenting him by beating him with a broom. We can also see ‘The Monster’ as an ‘overcoming the monster’ story, as it sees Eminem making peace with his ‘dark side’, something which has punished him in the past with the aforementioned cruelty and wickedness, but not something he has learned to live with. Rags to Riches As we’ll see in our discussions on rhetoric in Part 3, the ‘rags to riches’ story is not only an important one for hip hop lyricists to include in their catalogue, but also expected in order to establish authenticity. Booker identifies the lead character in a rags to riches story as someone who is ‘an ordinary, insignificant person, dismissed by everyone as of little account, who suddenly steps to the centre of the stage, revealed to be someone quite exceptional’ (Booker 2004: 51). Seeing as Eminem’s actual life can be defined in these terms, it’s unsurprising that we see this story type repeated again and again in his lyrics, e.g. ‘Rock Bottom’; ‘If I had’; ‘White America’; Evil Deeds’; ‘Yellow Brick Road’; ‘Sing For The Moment’. The Quest Perhaps more suited to epic storytelling (Booker identifies The Lord of the Rings and Homer’s Odyssey as examples of this story type), ‘The Quest’ doesn’t often crop up in Eminem songs. If we see ‘The Quest’ not as huge narratives filled with monsters, heroes, and villains, however, and just as the pursuit of ‘a priceless goal, worth anything to achieve’, we can start to apply this to songs which address Eminem’s pursuit of his initial fame, perhaps (seemingly worth risking his family for), or his pursuit of sobriety (worth the immense pain and anguish it causes him to avoid alcohol and

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drugs). We might even say that the goal Eminem sees as ‘priceless’ above all others is to be the ‘best’. Rick Rubin describes him as the ‘Most Obsessive [sic] artist that he met in any Genre’, saying ‘whether he’s working on a record, not working on a record, he’s writing all the time. Full time’ (24x7 Team 2020), and this obsession shows no sign of abating. As he says himself on ‘So Far…’, nothing will ever satisfy him, and despite having ‘it all’ and being voted ‘artist of the decade’ he still wants more. This would suggest that his desire to be ‘the best’ is a quest he will never succeed in as no external accolades will be enough: he is measuring himself against his own perception of what it takes to be ‘the best’ and thus will always fall short. We also see ‘The Quest’ story type in the song ‘Darkness’ where Eminem uncharacteristically writes from the perspective of another character for the duration of the whole song (albeit it imbued with his own characteristics, to the extent where much of it can be seen as an analogy for his addictions). In ‘Darkness’, Eminem ‘takes the role of Stephen Paddock, the shooter who killed 58 people at a country music concert in Las Vegas’ (Hunter-Tilney 2020), and the song revolves around the shooter’s quest to do as much damage as possible before the police arrive and stop him. The subtext to the song is even a quest story in itself: a quest to prevent gun crime in America. Voyage and Return Booker uses Alice in Wonderland, The Time Machine, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears to illustrate the ‘Voyage and Return’ story, which involves our main character travelling ‘out of their familiar, everyday ‘normal’ surroundings into another world completely cut off from the first […] until eventually […] they are released […] to the safety of the word where they began’ (Booker 2004: 87). We see this story type to an extent in ‘Drug Ballad’ where the drugs Eminem is taking remove him from his familiar surroundings until they wear off, but he never strays too far (and for too long) from normality. ‘3 am’ offers more of a Voyage and Return plot as Eminem is plunged into a nightmare world for the duration of the song and only really escapes it when the song finishes and he enters the narrative of ‘My Mom’ (although it could be argued that he enters another nightmarish fantasy world there, albeit it one not quite so fantastical as the one in ‘3 am’).We could also argue that Eminem’s career trajectory from The Marshall Mathers LP to The Marshall Mathers LP 2 offers a Voyage and

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Return narrative, as it saw him going from his humble origins in Detroit to superstardom and Hollywood, then back again (literally to the same house if we compare the two album covers). Comedy This is perhaps the hardest to define of all the story types, but Booker summarises it as having ‘four inter-related ingredients: Firstly, he says ‘any characters who have become dark because they are imprisoned in some hard, divisive, unloving state—anger, greed, jealousy [etc…] must be softened and liberated by some act of self-­ recognition and a change of heart.’ Secondly, ‘it may be necessary for the identity of one or more characters to be revealed in a more literal sense. They are discovered to be someone other than had been supposed.’ Thirdly, ‘where relevant, the characters must discover who they are meant to be paired off with.’ And ‘finally, and in general, wherever there is division, separation or loss, it shall be repaired.’ (Booker 2004: 116-117) To an extent, we can see this in ‘Headlights’, where 1) Eminem’s character has become dark due to his anger toward his mother, then 2) his mother is revealed as having ‘tried her best’ and therefore was more than Eminem gave her credit for, then 3) he realises that although they will remain estranged in a physical sense, he will always love her ‘from afar’, and 4) the division had thus been repaired (at least in Eminem’s own mind). It is, though, perhaps the least represented story type in Eminem’s catalogue. Tragedy Booker sets out the general stages of a Tragedy story type as follows: 1. Anticipation Stage: where our main character is in some way incomplete or unfulfilled and seeks gratification via an object of desire. 2. Dream Stage: where they become committed to the course of action 3. Frustration Stage: where things begin to go wrong 4. Nightmare Stage: where things slip seriously out of their control.

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5. Destruction or death wish stage: where they are destroyed either by the forces they have aroused against them, or by some final act of violence which precipitates their own death (e.g., murder or suicide). (Booker 2004: 156) The best example of this story type comes via what is perhaps Eminem’s best lyric in terms of narrative development, ‘Stan’. In the Anticipation Stage, we see Stan writing to Eminem to fill a gap in his life he feels his idol can fill; In the Dream Stage he continues writing, still fully believing there is some kind of future friendship (or romantic/ sexual relationship) to be struck up; Frustration Stage where it becomes clear that Eminem isn’t going to write back; Nightmare Stage where Stan takes desperate measures to get Eminem’s attention by reliving the narrative of ‘’97 Bonnie and Clyde’; and finally Destruction or death wish stage where Stan drives the car off the bridge to his death. Rebirth Largely focussing on the period around his overdose (including narratives before, during, and after), the 2009 album Relapse is structured around what Booker defines as the ‘Rebirth’ story, which he outlines as containing the following elements: ( 1) ‘a hero, who as a young man, falls under the shadow of a dark power; (2) as the poison gets to work, it takes some time to get the upper hand and to show its full destructive effect; (3) eventually the darkness emerges in full force, plunging the hero into a state of total isolation; (4) this culminates in a nightmare crisis which is the prelude to the final reversal; (5) the hero ‘wakes from his sleep’, and is liberated through the power of love’ (Booker 2004: 203) To expand: Initially ‘we may see the innocent but undeveloped young hero or heroine falling under the shadow of a dark power as it is personified in a […] malevolent figure outside them.’ (Booker 2004: 205)

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Eventually ‘we may see the dark power represented […] as something springing entirely from within the hero or heroine’s own personality: they have been unable to withstand the evil spell cast over them by the dark part of themselves’ (Booker 2004: 205). ‘In the middle, as a bridge between the two, we may see the kind of story where both these things happen: where the dark power is initially personified in […] figures outside the hero […] but where its effect is to turn him into a dark figure himself’ (Booker 2004: 205).

In Relapse we see the following: (1) a young hero or heroine falls under the shadow of the dark power Marshall is our young hero, and although when we first meet him, he is an adult, he is very much wearing the damages of his childhood, and the scars from the two main external villains or ‘dark powers’ on the album: his mother and stepfather. In ‘My Mom’ we see Eminem blaming his drug addiction on his mother, suggesting that he inherited such behaviours from a) her being addicted to prescription drugs herself, and b) adding Valium and Xanax to his food and drink. His mother is a malevolent presence in his life who, not satisfied with adding prescription drugs to everything her son eats and drinks, actively seeks to poison him by feeding him paint thinner, then chastising him for not eating it. His mother also makes an appearance in the song ‘Insane’ where, although not engaging in the sexual abuse of her son herself, encourages her boyfriend to ‘fuck his brains out’ (Eminem 2009a). She is also mentioned in ‘Hello’ where Eminem, as a grown-up serial killer, searches for ‘a pill’ and finds one down the back of the couch. The ‘stepfather’ that appears in ‘Insane’ is another dark power that casts a shadow over our protagonist’s life (and our protagonist is ‘Marshall’, as he is introduced at the start of the album by ‘Dr. West). The unnamed Stepfather character is presented as a monstrous character who sexually abuses Marshall from a young age (suggested by the mention of Teddy Ruxpin, who was a toy usually enjoyed by younger children). (2) for a while, all may seem to go reasonably well, the threat may even seem to have receded Staying within the self-contained universe of the album, we know that ‘Marshall’ is a rapper famous enough to be recognised by strangers (see ‘Same Song and Dance’), has a manager (see ‘Paul (Skit)’), and a label boss who suggests that he is so important as an artist that people lost their jobs during his hiatus (see ‘Steve Berman (Skit)’). So, ‘Marshall’ has gone

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on to achieve this in his adult despite the ‘dark powers’ he faced in his childhood. However… the line in ‘My Mom’ where he says that we (the listener) are probably sick of hearing about her and that he finds himself incapable of writing a ‘rhyme’ without her in it, tells us that she still looms large in his life. (3) but eventually it approaches again in full force, until the hero or heroine is seen imprisoned in the state of living death In ‘3 a.m’ Marshall speaks of there being no escape from his ‘nightmare’, meaning that in his life post-rehab, he is existing in a state of living death (4) this continues for a long time, when it seems that the dark power has completely triumphed In ‘Déjà vu’, Marshall is ‘unresponsive’ due to an overdose and nearly dies, and even after coming out of hospital, he is depressed to the point of wanting to give up his career. (5) but finally comes the miraculous redemption: either, where the imprisoned figure is a heroine, by the hero; or, whether it is the hero, by a Young Woman or a child’ (Booker 2004: 203). Surprisingly, Marshall is seemingly saved by ‘Shady’, the demon-on-­ the-shoulder alter ego which got him into trouble in the first place (or so we thought). Following his overdose, near-death experience and hospitalisation in ‘Déjà vu’ and subsequent depression in ‘Beautiful’, Marshall seems utterly broken, saying in the latter that he thinks he’s lost his sense of humour and may even be ‘done’ with rap. His voice is weakened and downcast and matches the maudlin content of the lyrics. If this were the end of the album, there would be no redemption: Marshall would have been broken by his demons to the extent where he was no longer able to function. Enter Slim Shady, first on ‘Crack a Bottle’, where he is introduced like a boxer gearing up for a fight, and in ‘Underground’, where he talks about Slim Shady being real, and launching into lyrics unapologetically and inflammatorily violent, homophobic, and misogynistic, in a voice every bit as filled with energy and fury as he was on The Marshall Mathers LP. As we first encounter Slim Shady In ‘Insane’, via a flashback where he saves Marshall from abuse, we can read the Slim character as being a childlike part of him (or, indeed his ‘Id’ as we will explore in the next chapter), thus meaning that Marshall has indeed technically been given redemption by a child.

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A Single Song’s Narrative In analysing the Balzac short story ‘Sarrasine’, Roland Barthes outlines five ‘codes’ which can be applied widely to literary texts as a whole, including, of course, the narratives we find in song lyrics. These are as follows: 1. Action code: This code ‘applies to any action that implies a further narrative action. For example, a gunslinger draws his gun on an adversary and we wonder what the resolution of this action will be.’ (Felluga 2011). Here the reader ‘amasses certain data under some generic titles for actions (stroll, murder, rendevouz…)’ (Barthes 1974: 19). 2. Cultural code: ‘Elements of the Cultural Code refer to what exists outside the world of the text… [and relies on] a sense of shared knowledge’. (Ironstone et al.) ‘Such knowledge may require us to know something about medicine, history, popular music, philosophy, or religions’ (Rapaport 2011: 95). 3. Hermeneutic code: ‘This code concerns the fact that a literary text poses enigmas to which readers want answers, the most obvious being the “who done it?” form of the murder mystery’ (Rapaport 2011: 95). 4. Semantic code: Also known as ‘connotative’ code, this code ‘refers to those elements that give some additional meaning or connotative meaning. The connotative meaning is often found in the characterization’ (Malik et al. 2014). 5. Symbolic code: ‘refers to those elements that give opposite meanings, i.e. have polarities and antithesis.’ (Malik et  al. 2014). ‘The two symbols Barthes considers most significant are antithesis and paradox’ (Ironstone et al. 2021) In ‘Like Toy Soldiers’ the chorus (a sample from the Martika song ‘Toy Soldiers’) appears first in the song, and works as the ‘action code’, with the lyrics implying the inevitability that the ‘toy soldiers’ will fail and be resigned to repeating the same behaviours over again. In the first line of his lyrics, Eminem aligns himself with these ‘toy soldiers’ with the line ‘I was supposed to be the soldier who never blew his composure’ (2004b), and in the next line mentions his ‘crew’, therefore identifying them as soldiers, too. With the chorus lyrics plus this additional information, we can make draw the very early conclusion that Eminem and his ‘crew’ are

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engaged in a ‘battle’, with the line ‘we never win’ (2004b) implying that this isn’t the first of its kind and almost certainly won’t be the last. The action code of these opening lines ‘implies a further narrative action’ (Felluga 2011) because we expect Eminem to expand upon the nature of this ‘battle’. The ‘generic titles for actions’ (Barthes 1974: 19) at this stage focus heavily upon violence, with the possibility of murder. With regard to the ‘Cultural code’, the song requires a fair amount of shared knowledge. We need to, for example, be aware of the history of such battles in the hip-­ hop world between rival crews, and how they often end in bloodshed or death. Without such knowledge, we wouldn’t be inclined to take the notion of such a ‘battle’ as seriously as we should and may just assume it refers to a war of words or posturing. We are also expected to know the following: Who is in Eminem’s ‘crew’ (D12 and the rest of the Aftermath stable); who ‘Benzino’ is (rapper and producer Raymond Leon Scott); who Hailie is; who ‘Ja’ is (Ja Rule); the fact that Ja Rule released a song where he rapped about Eminem’s daughter Hailie (the 2003 song ‘Loose Change’); that there was a previous rivalry between Jay Z and Nas; that there is a rivalry between 50 Cent and Ja Rule; that Eminem has a rivalry with The Source magazine; who Murder Inc. are (the record label Ja Rule was signed with at the time); and what Runyan Avenue is (‘a street in Detroit off of 8 Mile that is home to the Runyan Avenue Soldiers, who are Eminem’s friends’ (Maxxxamillion 2016). The ‘hermeneutic codes’, the ‘enigmas to which readers want answers’ (Rapaport 2011: 95) can be seen firstly in the tantalising reference Eminem makes to a secret he has gone through his ‘whole career without mentioning’ (2004b) but exactly what this secret is has been muted out on the recording, as one would mute out swear words on censored versions of songs with sensitive material. The main ‘enigma’, however, comes from us wanting answers as to the specifics of the various ‘beefs’, and information on how these ‘crews’ function. The song functions as a small window into a world most of us will be unfamiliar with but doesn’t provide enough information to show what it’s like to live in this world leaving us having to fill in the gaps and imagine (probably wrongly) what it would be like. We’re also led to wonder what the response to such a song would be from the Murder Inc. ‘crew’, and whether or not there would be a response song from them, and whether this would be similarly conciliatory in tone, or would continue the animosity between the two parties. Semantic code: ‘additional meaning or connotative meaning’ (Malik et al. 2014) may be identified via Martika’s chorus lyrics where the ‘toy soldiers’ are used as device to connote the disposability, fallibility,

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and ultimate destruction of humans, whose role in life, the lyrical allusion suggest, is to ‘battle, then ‘fall’, just like it has been for rap artists in the past. There are no winners in such battles, only losers, and Eminem wants to see an end to this. Eminem’s repeated usage of the word ‘soldiers’ underlines the connotation that the ‘beefs’ between rap crews is actually more like a war, with expected casualties and all. Finally, the Symbolic code, ‘those elements that give opposite meanings’ (Malik et al. 2014), may be seen via Eminem’s mixed signals. On one hand, he is pleading for an end to the violence that is rife between rival rap crews, but on the other he is continuing the animosity by justifying his own anger toward Murder Inc. via lines like ‘Fuck it 50 smash him! Mash on him and let him have it’ (2004b) and ‘the receptionist’ at The Source via lines like ‘that motherfucker could get it too, fuck him then’ (2004a). His assertions toward the end of the song that he’s ‘willin’ to be the bigger man’ and ‘If ya’ll can quit poppin’ off at the jaws, well then I can’ (2004b) are also at odds with the fact that he’s technically spent the whole song ‘poppin’ off’. Elsewhere in Eminem’s career, we can see this code satisfied over and over again, even in the Skits. In ‘Tonya’ for example, despite only being 42 seconds long, we can see: 1. Action code: We wonder what the resolution to the story of the abduction will be. 2. Cultural code: If we’ve watched a lot of Horror or thriller films, we know that the brooding, intense music suggests something bad is going to happen. Likewise, we know that rain is often used as a pathetic fallacy to indicate misery or sadness, or, if we’ve seen films such as Psycho, Seven, The Ring, or Identity, we are aware that bad things often happen when it is raining (or the need to get out of the rain leads people into making poor decisions). We also know that ‘hitchhiking is perceived as dangerous’ and that there have been ‘high-profile murder victims who’d been hitching’. (Stromberg 2015). We are also unlikely to connect the sound of tape being ripped from its spool and the subsequent fear in Tonya’s voice as her either being gagged or restrained by her silent assailant. 3. Hermeneutic code: We don’t know who Tonya is, nor where she’s come from or where she wants to go. We don’t know who the assailant is either and what his intentions are (although we can guess at both).

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4. Semantic code: Additional meaning can be found if we look at why Tonya is looking for a lift in the first place. She fact that she says her ‘OnStar’ (in-car security system) isn’t working suggests she was in her driving and her car has broken down. If we make the leap that our assailant had planned this abduction, we could make a further leap that he was responsible for the malfunctioning car and Onstar, too. 5. Symbolic code: The assailant apparently looks ‘trustworthy’ enough for Tonya to accept the lift, and to thank him profusely when she enters the car but he is anything but.

Choruses and Narratives Edwards states that ‘Most stories in hip-hop follow a pattern similar to traditional stories in books, movies, and TV series. They have characters, settings, and a structured plot—a beginning, a middle, and an end’ (Edwards 2009: 35). Perhaps, so, but this doesn’t explain how the hooks or choruses fit in as they often occur at the start, during, and at the end of songs, thus skewing any kind of clean, linear narrative. To include their lyrical content in any film-theory type analysis would be akin to watching a three act film where the same scene is repeated a number of times throughout the film. So in this respect, most hip-hop songs don’t follow a pattern similar to the stories in books, movies, or TV, and they must therefore be analysed differently. With regard to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’, Shuker (2008: 102) suggests that ‘many pick up ‘on the celebratory anthem-like chorus, rather than the verse narrative,’ and Johnson agrees that the chorus is usually the focal point of a song (and therefore song’s narrative) as it contains ‘the message of the song, or the main point the lyricist is trying to convey’ (Johnson 2009: 26). Pattison (2009: 232) suggests that a chorus can function as a summary, and Eminem uses this technique in ‘Evil Deeds’ where the verses explore Eminem’s ‘life’, flitting between childhood and present day and the chorus acts as a twisted confession where he’s pointing the finger of blame at his parents, and in ‘Brain Damage’ where the chorus serves as a brief overview of the entire song’s narrative, which is expanded upon in the verses.

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Chorus as a Dialogic Narrative In many of Eminem’s songs, choruses offer up the opportunity to bring in different ‘voices’, either from guest artists, or himself playing the role of a different character. In songs where Eminem’s voice is the only one we hear, we have what are called monologic narratives, where the narrator’s voice is the single point of authority. In songs like ‘Rhyme or Reason’, though, were Eminem uses the hook/ chorus as a dialogue, answering the question in each sung line himself with a rapped response, e.g. ‘(What’s your name?) Marshall/ (Who’s your daddy?) I don’t know him (2013a), or ‘My name is’ where Eminem takes on the role of the children in class calling back ‘who?’, ‘what?’, or ‘uh?’ to his questions, we do get a kind of dialogic narrative where ‘the voice of the narrator is not taken as the single point of authority in the narrative but as one contribution to knowledge among others’ (McQuillan 2000: 317). Most instances of dialogic narratives, however, come via songs where Eminem is bringing in another artist (and therefore another voice). In songs like ‘Love the Way You Lie’, the guest artist’s voice is offering up their own opinions within the narrative and functioning independently of Eminem’s own voice. Such instances are rare, however, compared with those where Eminem uses the chorus to inhabit the voice of the guest artists, getting them to speak for him. In an inaccurate review of the song ‘Headlights’, Johnson of the NME says that ‘In the final verse, he [Eminem] discusses mortality, saying that should the plane crash he was OK. “I am not afraid to die,” he raps’ (Johnson 2013). Eminem doesn’t rap this, Nate Reuss sings it, but, unintentionally, the reviewer does get to the nub of the matter, for even though the words aren’t coming out of his mouth, this is still Eminem’s voice: he is just using Reuss to say the words for him. We can see the set­up for this in the final verse, where Eminem raps ‘I wrote this on the jet’, and in the final chorus, Nate Reuss sings ‘If the plane goes down’ (Eminem 2013b) Similarly, about the chorus of ‘Bad Husband’ Rose writes ‘“How come, how come, you can be a liar and a good father?” he asks’ (Rose 2017). As with ‘Headlights’, this isn’t Eminem’s voice at all ‘asking’ (it’s Sam Harris from X Ambassadors), but it is interesting that critics are seeing such choruses as continuations of Eminem’s voice from the verses. Other instances where Eminem uses the voice of others to ‘speak’: ‘The Monster’: Where Eminem is using Rihanna’s voice to sing about ‘the voices’ in his head ‘Walk on Water’: Where Eminem uses Beyonce’s voice to speak the lines ‘I walk on water, but I ain’t no Jesus’ (2017a)

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‘Talkin’ 2 Myself’: Where Kobe sings the lines ‘Is anybody out there?/ It feels like I’m talking to myself’ (2010a) which are very much Eminem’s own ‘voice’ ‘Won’t Back Down’: Pink’s assertions in the chorus that she won’t back down are in face Eminem’s assertions ‘Space Bound’: Eminem introduces the chorus with ‘You’re a supernova… and I’m a…before Steve McEwan sings ‘I’m a space bound rocket ship and your heart’s the moon’ (2010c), directly claiming the words as his own with this use if ‘I’m’ ‘Like Toy Soldiers’: In the verses, Eminem positions himself as one of the ‘soldiers’, meaning the chorus ‘We all fall down like toy soldiers’ (2004b) sung by Martika, is very much his voice.

A Single Song’s Narrative: An Analysis of ‘Stan’ Eminem has frequently identified ‘Stan’ as the peak of his songwriting powers, even suggesting on ‘Walk on Water’ that it’s the song that makes him ‘godlike’ and separates him from mere mortals (an uncharacteristically smug lyric that, in my opinion went quite a long way to turning fans against the Revival album). Nonetheless, ‘Stan’ is a masterpiece in using the short lyrical form to create a story that has enough actual content to keep us entertained, but enough ‘gaps’ to keep us intrigued long after the song has finished, and contains ‘storytelling […] so vivid and claustrophobic that it grabbed you by the neck and forced you to get into the back of that car’ (Hobbs, 1999). The first thing I’m going to do in this analysis is look at the timeline of the song, identifying what happens and when. The song timeline for ‘Stan’ is as follows: • Stan writes ‘Slim’ a letter • Stan writes ‘Slim’ another letter • Stan records a cassette to send to ‘Slim’ as he drives himself and his girlfriend over a bridge to their deaths • Eminem writes back to Stan But the narrative timeline for ‘Stan’ goes like this: • Stan has a bad childhood with an absent and abusive father • Stan discovers Eminem and becomes a huge fan • Stan ‘meets’ Eminem in Denver, and Eminem says he’ll write a letter back if he receives one

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• Stan writes two letters to ‘Slim’ • At some point after the second letter, Stan’s girlfriend conceives (logically, Stan would have mentioned this in his second letter—that we didn’t see—if he had known then) • Stan writes a third letter to ‘Slim’ (this is where we enter the story) • Stan takes Matthew to an Eminem concert where they don’t manage to get an autograph • Stan gets drunk, ties his girlfriend up, put her in the trunk, and drives them over a bridge to their deaths • Eminem sees the incident reported on the news • Eminem replies to Stan The extra points in the narrative are coming out naturally in the letters, told past tense, allowing Eminem to add more depth to Stan’s character without getting drawn into a lengthy backstory. Thus, Eminem is able to make Stan a three-dimensional character with a complicated psyche while still keeping the song well-structured, catchy, and limited to a time-frame that is ‘acceptable’ for a mainstream single release (actually, taking out the choruses and Eminem’s closing verse, less than half the 6m 44s running time of the song is dedicated to Stan’s voice). Technically, then, ‘Stan’ is a linear narrative as we follow the story through in the order in which the events occurred. But what do we do with the chorus lyrics? We can’t neatly fit them into a clean linear narrative if we take them at face value, as the rest of the story has moved on, but this part of it has stayed the same. In the case of ‘Stan’, the chorus kicks off our story, before we hear any of Stan’s letters, and occurs a further three times, with the last coming after Stan has died. The chorus’s melody, production, and lyrics remains the same during each repetition, remains the same after Stan implores ‘Slim’ to write back to him, remains the same as Stan becomes enraged then tells ‘Slim’ they should be together, and remains the same as Stan drives his car into the river. But just because they sound the same, does that mean we receive them in the same way? Do the verses that precede or follow each chorus change how we hear the music or interpret the lyrics, even though they themselves don’t change? Searle and Vanderveken use the term context of utterance in critical thinking to describe scenarios where ‘the same sentence can be uttered in different contexts to perform different illocutionary acts’ (Searle and Vanderveken 1985: 27) In ‘Stan’, before we meet the eponymous character, the chorus works as a way to establish mood, both through its use of imagery,

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metaphor, and pathetic fallacy (cold, rain, clouded-up windows, the colour grey), and its sombre, minor key melody, whose backing/ chord sequence is then repeated throughout the song. In this way, even without the lyrics of the chorus being present throughout the song, we are made to keep them in mind (or at least made to keep their general mood and tone in mind) for the duration of the song. The next time we hear the chorus is after we’ve met Stan, learn that he has a pregnant girlfriend, and begin to see some of the desperation and instability in his character. We also learn that he has a ‘room full’ of posters of Eminem, which now becomes significant in terms of the line in the chorus ‘but your picture on my wall, it reminds me that it’s not so bad’ (Eminem 2000a). Because of this, if we hadn’t done so before, we are inclined to attach the chorus’s voice to Stan, regardless of the fact it’s sung by a female, and the somewhat desperate undertones to Stan’s first letter seem to chime with its gloominess. ‘Stan’ is told in an epistolary format via two letters and a tape recording from Stan to Eminem, and an unsent letter from Eminem to Stan. Stableford identifies the literary letter as ‘a highly significant narrative device, defining an entire subgenre of epistolary novels as well as providing—by means of its going astray—a vital method of creating and sustaining misunderstandings between characters’ (Stableford 2006: 519). It is this misunderstanding between Stan and Eminem that leads to the death of Stan, his girlfriend, and his unborn child, and the guilt Eminem feels for the event (explored in more depth on the ‘Stan’ sequel ‘Bad Guy’ 13 years later). If Stan knew that Eminem was going to reply, then, according to him at least, he wouldn’t have been driven to such an extreme act to get Eminem’s attention. And if Stan knew he hadn’t been snubbed by Eminem as he went to get his autograph with Matthew, his anger and rejection may not have been so keenly felt. The music video adds to this ‘misunderstanding’ when it shows Stan’s first letter being dropped from a mail trolley, meaning that Eminem hadn’t even received it. The epistolary technique, according to Cueva & Byrne also ‘problematizes the boundary between reality and fiction […as] whenever one writes a letter, one automatically constructs a self, an occasion, a version of the truth’ (Cueva and Byrne 2014: 247). What we see from Stan, therefore, (and later Eminem) is a version of themselves: in Stan’s case a version which he feels will be attractive to Eminem, and in Eminem’s, one which won’t give away too much of himself but won’t feel like a rejection to Stan. As such, much of Stan’s letters could be fabrication. We know that there is apparent ‘truth’ in him driving drunk over a bridge with his pregnant girlfriend in the trunk due

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to Eminem seeing a report of it on the news, but it is a ‘truth’ that is only verified by Eminem, and therefore filtered through his vision of the world. It’s perfectly possible that he’s attached Stan and the incident together incorrectly (after all, he never received the tape which Stan wanted to send him), and therefore doesn’t finish or send the letter because he believes Stan to be dead. As such, Stan, feeling rejected, copies the incident that was reported on the news, meaning Eminem is indirectly responsible. Of course, this theory all falls down when we bring the narrative of ‘Bad Guy’ into the discussion, where Matthew Mitchell, little brother of Stan, speaks about receiving the signed cap Eminem sent Stan. But why would Eminem finish the letter and send the cap to Stan if he believed he was dead? If we bring logic into the argument, the only reasonable explanation is that Eminem invents Stan as a further alter ego in order to deal with the guilt he feels at his new found fame and wealth, then kills him off when he has ceased to be of use. In ‘Bad Guy’ Eminem speaks about trying to recreate the ‘magic’ of The Marshall Mathers LP and that he’s an artist ‘trapped in his own drawings’ (Eminem 2013b), suggesting that he can’t let ‘Stan’ go (both as a song and as a character) and has tried to bring him back to life via Matthew in order to reach the artistic heights he once reached. The first letter in ‘Stan’ serves as a way for Eminem to establish character. In a few bars, we get to know that Stan is a very needy and insecure man who has already written to Eminem twice and is so desperate to get a reply that he left three ways for him to get in contact. This also suggests that Stan is quite deluded: Eminem may reply to his letter, but the likelihood of him contacting him via his pager or ‘cell’ phone? Wishful thinking. This, added to the fact he’s planning on naming his daughter after one of Eminem’s most violent songs, ‘’97 Bonnie and Clyde’, and the line towards the end of the letter/ verse that invites Eminem to get in touch ‘just to chat’ shows that Stan is pinning a lot of hope on a very one-sided relationship. And because we know this and he doesn’t (mirroring the old cinematic technique in ‘thriller’ or ‘horror’ films where we, the audience, know more than the characters on screen), we can see the unhappy ending long before Stan can. We should also note that the letter is addressed to ‘Slim’, rather than Marshall, or even Eminem, suggesting that it’s this violent alter ego that Stan is idolising, and that writing to what is essentially a fictional character isn’t the work of a man who is thinking clearly. The language Stan uses is also quite instructive in that his use of slang or incorrect English, e.g. ‘phat’, ‘hit me back’, ‘anyways’, ‘I’mma’, ‘jot ‘em’, ‘anyways’, and ‘wrote you’ is very similar to the kind of language Eminem

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has used on his previous releases. So either Stan does have an upbringing similar to Eminem’s that has led to them using similar language, or he’s become so obsessed with his idol that he’s starting to talk like him. He also refers to a woman who rejected his friend as a ‘bitch’, mirroring both the language Eminem uses on The Slim Shady LP and the misogyny he frequently puts across. Again, though, we’re not sure if Stan was misogynistic before his obsession with Eminem began, or if he’s adopting the behaviours of ‘Slim’ to seem more appealing, so ‘Slim’ will reciprocate the friendship Stan so desires. The second letter continues to develop Stan as a character and adds to the idea we might have gleaned from the first that he is emotionally unstable. Whereas in the first letter Stan was understanding of the lack of a reply, to the extent where he’s making excuses and even blaming himself, in the second he starts off trying to be equally as calm but gets only as far as the second line before letting his anger come out, exclaiming that ‘Slim’ is ‘fucked up’ for not answering him. The way that Stan shifts so suddenly from the politeness of the first line to such anger is quite startling (and, in the delivery, testament to Eminem’s skill as a performer/ actor), and despite stating on two separate occasions that he isn’t ‘mad’ (meaning angry, one can assume), what he’s saying, and how he’s saying it suggests the opposite. It’s also during this letter/ verse that we find out a little more about Stan’s personal life. He speaks about his childhood, comparing it to ‘Slim’s’ as they both had fathers they no longer knew and who beat and cheated on their mothers, and he also mentions his little brother, Matthew, who, despite being only six years old apparently idolises ‘Slim’ more than Stan himself. With regard to Matthew, we have two possible interpretations. The first is that he’s a figment of Stan’s deluded mind, invented to make ‘Slim’ feel guilty for rejecting him, and also, seeing as he’s only a year older than Eminem’s daughter Hailie at the time, to mirror his idol’s life once more, showing that he too is responsible for a young child. Secondly, Matthew may be real, in which case Stan taking him to an Eminem concert is an act of pretty extreme irresponsibility, and allowing him (or more likely persuading him) to wait in the ‘blistering’ cold for four hours for an autograph is doubly so. We also see via this verse/ letter than Stan engages in self-harm and suffers with depressive episodes, and is presumably not seeking any help for this beyond reaching out to ‘Slim’. Equally worrying is the line where Stan expresses his respect for ‘Slim’ because he believes everything he says to be real. Presuming, as ‘Slim’s’ ‘biggest fan’, Stan would have listened to The Slim Shady LP repeatedly,

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taking the lyrics as ‘real’ would mean that he is idolising someone he believed had actually committed the crimes he speaks about, including killing his own wife. Thrown in as a post-script at the end of the letter/ verse is a line saying that Stan thinks he and ‘Slim’ should ‘be together’. Whether he means this in a sexual, platonic, or spiritual sense isn’t overt at this point, but given that he’s already spoken about wanting his friendship, the use of the word ‘too’ implies that he desires something beyond that at least. What it also implies is that Stan seems to value ‘Slim’ much more than his girlfriend and unborn child, something we will see more of in the next letter. Stan records this third correspondence to ‘Slim’, eschewing his usual address of ‘Dear Slim’ in favour of ‘Dear Mister-I’m-Too-Good-To-Call-­­ Or-Write-My-Fans’ (Eminem 2000a) and coming six months after his last letter, when he was already displaying worrying behaviours. In this one, Stan records his message on a cassette as he drives, under the influence of a ‘fifth’ of Vodka (as per the lyric from ‘My Name is’), on ‘a thousand downers’ (Eminem 2000a), his girlfriend tied up in the trunk of his car. If the previous correspondence hinted at the levels of Stan’s anger, this one sees it at its peak, with him spitting out his hatred from ‘Slim’, while also expressing his love for him (parallels between this and ‘Kim’, anyone?) The verse ends with Stan driving over a bridge into the water, his final words not expressing remorse that he’s killing his girlfriend and unborn child, but at the fact he won’t be able to send the tape to ‘Slim’. Our final ‘correspondence’ comes from Eminem himself, responding to Stan’s second letter (second letter that we see in the song, anyway). The SFX of the pencil scratching—the same one we heard during Stan’s own written correspondences—shows that Eminem is writing this rather than speaking it, and, if we take a bit of a leap, the fact that he’s writing it in pencil like Stan shows there is a similarity between the two of them, and Stan didn’t just imagine it. Clearly, the SFX of a pencil was only put in there because it has a distinctive and recognisable sound, unlike a pen, but as it’s in there it can become as big a part of our analysis as we wish to make it. We can, for example, consider that ‘many adults seem to prefer pens to pencils because they associate pencils with children’ and that ‘one of the main reasons kids use pencils is because they have erasers’ (Katie 2021). Perhaps this suggests that both are unwilling to risk making anything permanent, or that they lack confidence and are expecting to make mistakes, or they are comforted by the feel of the pencil (Eminem

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mentions in a number of interviews that he turned to drawing to find escape in his unhappy childhood), or they lack maturity, etc. etc. We can also seem a similarity between Eminem and Stan in the lexia they both use, e.g both omit the word ‘to’ when saying ‘wrote to you’ or ‘write to you’, the use of ‘shit’ as a replacement for other words (e.g. ‘stuff’, or ‘nonsense’ etc.), and both use the term ‘fucked’ up. Eminem also links them further by saying that Stan cut his wrists (something Eminem admitted to doing himself) despite Stan not specifying where he cuts himself, only that he does so somewhere on his body.

Portmanteau Narratives As well as complete narratives, we can also see narrative fragments in Eminem’s songs, which occur as very short stories within songs, that, more than anything work like anecdotes told in order to establish character. We see a series of these within ‘My Name Is’, which, seeing as it essentially functions as Eminem introducing himself to the world makes sense. In this song, Eminem give as a series of vignettes taking place in his bedroom (hanging himself), Junior High school (chasing his teacher), a nightclub (flashing a bartender), and White Castle (signing an autograph and abusing the autograph hunter), each of which succeed in showing ‘Slim Shady’ being an outlandish character in a number of different social scenarios, underlining the fact that he doesn’t care who he is abusive towards. The Portmanteau story is ‘…purposely episodic and often based around the motif of storytelling, where separate short stories are juxtaposed and/ or given coherence by a loose frame story’ (Browning 2009: 60). ‘These subnarratives act as decentralizing factors with no individual protagonist being the sole concern of the story’ (Piciucco 2004: 222). We don’t see this technique in many Eminem songs, but it is certainly used to good effect in ‘Guilty Conscience’, where three short stories, (a store robbery, a sexual assault, and a murder at a trailer park) each with a different cast of characters, is tied together by Dr. Dre’s ‘angel on the shoulder’ positive influence, and Eminem’s ‘devil on the shoulder’ bad influence. We also see the portmanteau narrative in ‘The Kids’ where Eminem, in his role as ‘Mr Shady’ the substitute teacher, tells the class three short stories, again each with a different narrative and cast of characters, which are tied together under the theme of recreational drugs.

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Lead Singles as Wider Cultural Narratives The first ‘lead’ singles from Eminem’s first four albums are linked by their comedic videos (which involve Eminem lampooning a series of current celebrities), big, catchy singalong choruses, and their lack of graphic violence (within lyrics or video), and as a result form their own narrative series of sorts, based on the zeitgeist of the time. As Eminem himself says “I’ve always wanted people to be able to look back at each video and go, ‘Oh, remember what was going on at that moment?’ (Songfacts 2021). With the exception of ‘My Name is’ which served as Eminem’s introduction of himself (as Slim Shady) to the world, the singles also involve him talking about how he’s ‘back’, or ‘returning’ forming a real-life timeline link between himself and his back catalogue. Below, we can see the similarities between these singles: ‘My Name Is’ Celebrities mentioned: The Spice Girls; Pamela Anderson (as Pamela Lee); Kris Kros; Usher; Dr Dre Other people mentioned: His mum; his dad Directed at: ‘Kids’; an audience in general Video: Dressed up as Bill Clinton (with Monica Lewinski reference), Johnny Carson, Marilyn Manson ‘The Real Slim Shady’ Celebrities mentioned: ‘Pam and Tommy’ (Lee); Dr Dre; Tom Green; Britney Spears; Christina Aguilera; Carson Daley; Fred Durst Other people mentioned: Kim; his Mum Directed at: ‘Y’all’ Video: Dressed up as Tom Green, Britney Spears ‘Without Me’ Celebrities mentioned: Obie Trice; Dick and Lynne Chaney; Elvis Presley; Chris Kirkpatrick; Limp Bizkit; Prince; Moby Other people mentioned: His mum (Debbie) Directed at: ‘Everybody’ Video: Dressed up as Robin, Elvis Presley; Moby; Osama Bin Laden

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‘Just Lose it’ Celebrities mentioned: Michael Jackson; Dr. Dre; Directed at: ‘Everyone’ Video: Dressed up as Michael Jackson, MC Hammer, Pee Wee Herman, Madonna ‘We Made You’ Celebrities mentioned: Jessica Simpson; Kim Kardashian; Lyndsey Lohan; Sam Ronson; Portia de Rossi; Ellen DeGeneres; Sara Palin; John Mayer; Jessica Alba; Amy Winehouse; Blake Fielder-Civil; Dr. Dre; Kevin Federline Directed at: Generic ‘you’ Video: Dressed up as Bret Michaels, ‘Rainman’; Elvis Presley

Visual Storytelling At its simplest, structuralism ‘claims that the nature of every element in any given situation has no significance by itself, and is in fact determined by its relationship to all the other elements involved in that situation’ (Hawkes 1996: 17). This suggests that to form a full analysis of Eminem’s work, we also need to look toward his album art and music video (if either or both are present). Album Covers In the Taschen book 1000 Record Covers, Michael Ochs highlights the importance of album art, saying that ‘like the music on the discs, they address such issues as love, life, death, fashion, and rebellion […and] are a sign of our life and times’ (Ochs 1996: inside cover). Some artists ‘treat their sleeves as a blank canvas on which they can create a genuine piece of high-class art that should be revered as much as the music’ (Draper 2008: 13), and others ‘choose to intertwine their music with their visuals so intensely that it is hard to decide where one begins and the other ends’ (Draper 2008: 13). Although perhaps becoming less and less important in the age of streaming, the album remains Eminem’s major form of artistic expression, and his album covers form part of that overall experience. This section will analyse a series of Eminem album covers in relation to photographic theory, and Barthes’s theories on ‘decoding’ images.

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How Eminem appears within the album art of each studio album can be summarised very briefly, or dissected in depth, depending on our wont. As well as the images we’re faced with on the album covers, it’s also important to look at how the album title works with the images. Every album cover has the title written on it somewhere, and this allows us to analyse how it works in relation to its corresponding image. Berger says: ‘In the relation between a photograph and words, the photograph begs for an interpretation, and the words usually supply it. The photograph, irrefutable as evidence but weak in meaning, is given a meaning by the words. And the words, which by themselves remain at the level of generalization, are given specific authenticity by the irrefutability of the photograph. Together the two then become very powerful…’ Berger 2013: 66

Briefly: The Slim Shady LP shows Eminem as a walking contradiction: murderer but doting father (a contradiction he will dissect in much detail on numerous songs later in his career). The title forces us to make the connection between the name Slim Shady and the male figure standing on the pier and starts us making assumptions about who he is as a person/ character. The Marshall Mathers LP is an anomaly in Eminem’s catalogue, as it was released with two separate front covers: the ‘docks’ one, which shows Eminem huddled on an Amsterdam loading dock (mainly used for UK release), and the more widespread one showing Eminem sitting on the stoop of his childhood home in Detriot. Whichever cover we use, though him as a victim. In the ‘docks’ one, he is a victim of the circumstances (and the weather) that have left him huddled in a heap on the ground, and in the ‘house’ one, he is a victim of his past, represented visually by his childhood home looming behind him as he sits before it, small and engulfed by its significance. The title, with Eminem’s birth name, represents the fact that this is likely to be a more serious, honest, and less cartoonish offering than The Slim Shady LP. The Eminem Show sees Eminem as the troubled superstar, being crushed by the weight of fame. The title simply underlines this. Encore shows Eminem lashing out at that fame by murdering his audience. The title situates it as a sequel to The Eminem Show (or to all his releases so far) whilst also suggesting it’s going to be his last appearance.

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Relapse sees Eminem consumed by drug addiction. The title is one of the smallest to appear on any Eminem album (beaten only by Kamikaze) and appears as if it’s written on the label on a of bottle of pills, and his name, appearing beneath it, is even smaller. This adds to the notion that Eminem has become engulfed by his drug habit, which is now all-encompassing. Recovery sees Eminem literally ‘on the road’ to recovery, turning his back on his problems. The title, appearing with a ‘hospital’ cross within the typeface of the letter ‘O’ demonstrates that his recovery is a medical one. The Marshall Mathers LP 2 shows Eminem still haunted by his past but drawing a line under it. The title emphasises this, and alongside the image of the same house that appeared on The Marshall Mathers LP shows us this is not just a sequel, but a return ‘home’ to his past. Revival shows a patriotic Eminem embarrassed by his county. The title, with a red line underlining the word itself but crossing it out in the process, suggesting the ‘revival’ in question is at best, only partial, and at worst, a mistake he wants to undo. Kamikaze sees Eminem in fight mode, and via its homage to The Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill, suggesting his place among Hip Hop’s elite is secured. The title is extremely small and written on the plane itself, and his name doesn’t appear at all. Only the Slim Shady hockey mask logo attaches the album to him, and this itself is instructive: he’s now such an enormously popular artist that he can put a logo instead of his name and it’ll still be recognised. Music to be Murdered by situates Eminem as an antagonist, ready to murder his contemporaries through his lyrical skills. The title, with he ‘I’ and ‘c’ of ‘music’ typefaced as a knife and axe respectively fitting with the ‘murder’ aesthetic of the title, and the blood dripping down the right hand side of the cover image. Analysing The Slim Shady LP in More Depth In his essay ‘Rhetoric of the Image’, Roland Barthes speaks about how we can decode a photograph or picture in order to uncover its ‘message’, saying that ‘if our reading is satisfactory, the photograph analysed offers us three messages: a linguistic message, a coded iconic message, and a non-­ coded iconic message’ (Barthes 1977: 36). The linguistic message on the front cover of The Slim Shady LP is that a) the title is The Slim Shady LP

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(and the image is therefore linked to the album), and that there is ‘explicit content’ to be found within due to the parental advisory sticker. Whether this is bad language, violence, or both we don’t yet know, but this will influence how we decode the front cover image. Barthes suggests that the non-coded image is the ‘pure image… [which] provides a series of discontinuous signs…’ (Barthes: 34). In the case of the Slim Shady LP album cover, we see a man, dressed in gloves and overalls, standing at the railings of a pier looking out over the water, a very small child next to him peering over the bottom railing. In the mid-ground, we have a wooden pier; in the foreground, a car, boot open and the legs of a person sticking out; in the background an enormous moon in a foggy sky. To find the ‘code’ in the album cover, Barthes suggests that we need to look at what the specific objects, people, or surroundings connote, looking at how they are arranged, what they look like, and what they signify. In doing this, we may require ‘a generally cultural knowledge’ (Barthes: 35) so will need to bring in external connections (and our own thoughts and feelings) rather than just seeing the image at face value. One of the first things to analyse is the large, full moon, which is representative of ‘horror tropes borrowed from Hollywood horror film’ (Kérchy 2016: 106). The ‘fog-shrouded landscape’ of the deserted pier is also a trope associated with… Horror film iconography’ (Gerrard 2017). Before we’ve even turned our attention to the figures in the image, then, we already have a reading of the image which suggests some kind of horror. When we bring in the legs sticking out of the car boot, and the man and child looking on, we most certainly leap to the conclusion that the whoever is in the boot is dead, and the man (wearing gloves), has killed her. Once we actually listen to the album, we see that this is indeed the case, and the image is a visual depiction of the song ‘97’ Bonnie and Clyde’. The juxtaposition of the horror image of a dead body in the boot of a car and ‘parental advisory sticker’ with the happy-looking child and childish, multi-coloured crayon-like font of the album title sets the tone of the album as a whole, transposing the music ‘to the visual realm’ and setting ‘a mood and tone’ for the listener, ‘as well as a clarification of the artistic intent behind the album’ (Bolot 2019). The rest of the album art (in the CD booklet and on the back cover) shows similar contradictions. Eminem is literally depicted in a cartoon scene in the inner sleeve, standing next to a cartoon window that might be seen in any young child’s TV show. But in amongst all this child-like imagery, Eminem has spatters of blood all over his shirt. In the CD booklet, the double spread image of a giant,

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laughing mushroom atop a Trailer, as two overweight, scantily-clad women chase a Mummy is juxtaposed on the next page with a very normal-­ looking Eminem. Even the dedications evidence this contradiction. One line above the heartfelt ‘This album is dedicated to my daughter, Hailie Jade Scott’ we have ‘…such my dick you fucks’ (The Marshall Mathers LP CD booklet). All of this gives the impression that the world the album is set in is built on shifting sands amid drug-induced hallucinations and this is realised when we listen to the lyrics: at one point we are faced with the realism of a store robbery, trailer park or house party, and the next the fantasy of Slim Shady beating up Foghorn Leghorn, then ripping out Hillary Clinton’s tonsils and feeding her sherbet; in one scene he have real-life father and daughter, in the next Eminem tying a rope around his penis and jumping from a tree. These dualities (the horror with the childlike; the realism with the surrealism; the profane with the innocent) that are seen in both artwork and music establish what Grønstad & Vågnes say is the ‘strong sense of continuity between the musical, visual and textual compound that constructs the album as a multi-faceted but also curiously coherent phenomenological entity’ (Grønstad and Vågnes 2010: 11). The rather unusual positioning of Eminem himself within the front cover, far off in the top right, looking off into the distance also offers us something worthy of analysis. Eftaiha theorises that ‘when the subject is off-center [sic], it creates tension within your image’, and that such framing gives off the feeling that our subject is ‘either striving towards the center [sic] to once again become balanced in a logical place, or that it is trying to move even further away from the center [sic] towards the edge of the photograph’ (Eftaiha 2012). The creation of more tension certainly adds to and fits with the rest of the photograph, which is already heavy with unpleasant symbolism and horror tropes. With regard to Eminem’s desire to either strive toward the centre or mover further away from it, one might surmise that his relaxed posture and relaxed, neutral expression lean more towards moving away. After all, the centre of the image, containing his dead wife, is the now the past (and therefore something he’s looking to move on from), and his position over on the right, with his daughter, represents the future. He’s even looking further out in that direction, trying to create more distance from his past. Machin says that ‘When we see a person in an image looking off frame rather than at an object in the image […] we are invited to imagine what they are thinking,’ (Machin 2010: 41) and in this instance, we are invited to imagine what Eminem is thinking after the narrative of “97 Bonnie and Clyde’: what he sees as his next steps for himself and Hailie.

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Album Art: The CD Booklet and Storytelling On the albums The Eminem Show and Encore, and the Greatest Hits collection Curtain Call, Eminem used the CD booklet to tell visual stories, almost like the comics he loved so much as a child. In The Eminem Show, the booklet shows us a series of still images seemingly taken from CCTV cameras (including date and time stamps). Dates are between 2nd July 2001 and 18th April 2002 (a similar timeframe to the recording process); Back cover of booklet—CCTV shot of 3 people working ‘behind the scenes’ on The Eminem Show; Double-page image of Eminem sitting by a bank of TVs wearing a shirt and tie, lanyard round his neck, reading what looks to be a finance newspaper; Image of Eminem’s face, half in shadow, wearing beanie hat, looking at the camera as though he is bored/ fed up/ dissatisfied; Image of vertical striped colour test card with ‘The Eminem Show’ banner across it; Images of Eminem in the studio (in booth with lyric sheets, and at mixing desk with Dr. Dre); Image of photographer in car with telephoto lens; image of Eminem writing on pad with headphones and personal CD player next to him on kitchen table; 2 images of Eminem shirtless with a towel over his head; 4 small CCTV images of Eminem taking out wheelie bin and rubbish bags; image of CCTV camera; image of Eminem, shirtless, picking out a suit from the rack of his walk-in wardrobe; 2 images of Eminem and Hailie in swimming pool, Halie leaning out and getting water from her eyes, Eminem behind her, goggles pulled up on head, looking like a dedicated and responsible father; 1 image of Hailie getting out of the pool; Image from a doorway, door handle in the foreground, Eminem perched on the arm of a settee talking to two other people (whose identities are unclear); Close up of TV studio mixing desk; 3 images from inside Eminem’s post box, looking out as he opens it (wearing glasses) and reaches in for his mail. Conclusion: The cover and booklet all support the album title’s suggestion that Eminem’s life has become a ‘show’, where everything he does— from checking his mail to swimming with his daughter is under scrutiny, and in Truman Show fashion, his life is filmed, then played out in front of an audience for their entertainment. Unlike The Truman Show, however, such images are metaphorical, designed to show an exaggerated account of how Eminem ‘felt like it was becoming a circus around that time, and I felt like I was always being watched…”’ (Rafly 2020) On the penultimate page of the booklet, however, we see Eminem sitting by a bank of TVs (each showing images of photographers with telephoto lenses), his foot up

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on the desk, wearing a shirt and tie, lanyard round his neck, reading what looks to be a financial newspaper, looking at the camera with a menacing look in his eyes. This would suggest that even though his life has become a circus and he’s always being watched, he knows who is watching them and is watching them back. His facial expression and relaxed body posture give the impression that he’s calling the shots here and is not to be messed with. In Encore, the cover, booklet, and under-CD image all tell a story, but it’s not told in a linear way. In order to piece together the story, we need to look at it in the following order: Back cover: We see that it’s a performance by Eminem in a theatre. It’s a capacity audience: sold out. Page 3 of booklet (above ‘Yellow brick road’ lyrics): we see 2 photos. In the first, Eminem is seated at the vanity in his dressing room, wearing a vest, writing on a pad. In the second, he looks at himself in the mirror. Page 4 of booklet: Full-page image of Eminem’s hands. He is holding 2 bullets, and we can see another 10 on the pad (on which we see what he has written, although part of it is obscured by the bullets: it’s apparent it’s a suicide note) and another off to the left, next to a glass of water, an open flip-top phone, and the gun itself. CD itself: Close up on the suicide note. Page 5 of booklet: Eminem cocks gun, looking at himself in the mirror. Page 10: 4 images. Image 1: Eminem, same position as front cover, but now looking up, straight at the camera. Image 2: Same as back cover. Eminem shown from rear, gun behind his back. Image 3: Cocks gun. Image 4: Crowd panicking (presumably shots have been fired at this point). Page 11: Full-page image of crowd chaos in the foreground, Eminem on stage in background, shooting directly at the camera. Page 12: Man in white tuxedo from the front row (third from the left on back cover) holding rolled up programme, slumped against barrier, bullet wound to chest. Page 14: Full-page image with Eminem in foreground on left shooting into the crowd as they rush for the exits. Page 15: A number of people with gunshot wounds, seemingly dead or gravely injured. Page 16: 2 images. Image 1: Close up of Eminem shooting. No expression on face. Image 2: Blood-splattered woman crying/ screaming. Page 18: Screaming people rushing down stars (presumably from the circle).

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Page 19: Full-page image of people rushing down stairs. Page 20: Woman holds on to a man with gunshot wound to chest as he falls to the ground. Page 22: People lying dead. We can see blood-splattered programmes on the floor, the covers of which read ‘Showbill—Encore’ and the back covers ‘Encore—Eminem’ Page 6 of booklet: Eminem backstage, walking downstairs after the shooting, suit jacket over shoulder, sleeves rolled up, but shirt sill tucked in. 2nd page of booklet and final 2 pages are variations of the same image. Eminem, suit jacket off, shirt untucked, cuffs undone, sits backstage, staring into space, gun hanging between his legs. Under CD: Eminem puts gun in mouth… Story: Eminem intends to kill his audience after the encore of his show. In his dressing room, he prepares, loading his gun, and writing his suicide note. He goes on stage, performs, produces a gun and starts shooting. Afterwards, he walks backstage, takes off his suit jacket, undoes cuffs and untucks shirt, and sits down. After a few moments’ thought, he raises the gun to his mouth and presumably dies by suicide. The Eminem Show sets up a story whereby Eminem feels his every move is scrutinised and his life has become a ‘show’. Encore continues this, with Eminem disillusioned so much by this that he kills his audience (and, importantly, shoots straight at the camera killing the gaze of the audience outside the theatre), then kills himself. The location and dress of the audience is worthy of mention, too. A theatre more suited to plays than rap shows, and an audience that exude wealth and privilege. Could be Eminem commenting on how he’s now moved so far into the mainstream that people from such backgrounds are now fans: the opposite of the fans he speaks about in ‘Sing for the moment’. Eminem, disgusted by this ‘betrayal’ of his roots and core fanbase, fantasises about withdrawing from fame, using the shooting as a metaphor. This is clearly a fantasy and it could well be that the images on page 3 of the booklet are the only ‘true’ ones: Eminem in his dressing room, imagining doing these things, before going out and doing a normal show. How do lyrics support this? Evil Deeds. Curtain Call completes this narrative split over 3 albums. Coming a year after the release of Encore, Curtain Call’s front cover apes the cover of the former: besuited Eminem on a stage, same colour tie, one hand behind his back. Importantly, we can’t see his face. A definition of ‘Curtain Call’ is even given under the CD: ‘n: an appearance by actor

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or performer at the end of the concert or play in order to acknowledge the applause of the audience.’ Booklet: Eminem the performer: Black and white photo of Eminem mid-­ performance; Back cover of booklet: Eminem in booth as Dre sits at mixing desk, head in hands (message: Eminem’s lyrics are so messed up that they’ve even disturbed Dre). Series of 3 photos: Eminem the ‘ordinary’ person’; Slim Shady being arrested (mugshot shows his height as being over 6 feet despite it being commonly agreed he’s only 5 feet 8 inches—an indication that Slim Shady is physically different, too, a la Jekyll and Hyde; Eminem straight-jacketed in a padded cell. Eminem the sex symbol: He stares moodily at the camera Eminem the victim: He sits huddled in the rain Eminem the artist: (tortured artist) Sits at the mixing desk, head in hands as a concerned Dr Dre. Looks over at him. 3 images of him in the vocal booth, writing on pad, then rapping. Eminem the dangerous: Black and white moody photo of his face, with fist raised in front of it complete with knuckle dusters. After the end of this ‘first spell’ of Eminem’s career, he never again used the booklet in such a way, and went back to using it as a functional, practical means to relay information about the writing/ production credits. But this three CD cycle was, perhaps, the peak of Eminem’s storytelling prowess as he was doing it across three fronts: lyrics, artwork, and music video. Which we come to now. Music Video Music and music video are now so interlinked that it’s often hard to imagine one without the other, and this was evidenced in 2018 when it was announced that Youtube views would count towards the UK singles chart (Official Charts Company, 2018). ‘So ingrained is the music video into popular culture that there have been numerous instances where a video has either led to the success of a song, or become MORE successful. So, any time we conduct a full in-depth analysis into a song, and it HAS a music video (this would include pretty much every ‘single’ released today) we

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must include the music video in this analysis, as, once it is made, it is as inseparable from the overall music package as lyrics are from melody, and melody is from production. Fosbraey and Melrose 2018: 69

Music videos also allow us to bring in extra narratives or discussion points which may not be overly evident (or even present) in the songs themselves. If we revisit our earlier discussion of ‘Stan’, bringing the music video into our analysis changes the way we might read the song as it attaches Dido’s sections firmly to Stan’s girlfriend, played in the video by Dido herself. In the long version of the music video, there is a 1 minute 20 seconds of film before the music starts, and this serves as a contextualisation for Dido’s lyrics that aren’t present when just listening to the song. In this opening section of the music video, we see Stan’s heavily pregnant girlfriend waking up alone in bed. She gets up and goes to the bathroom, where she finds a very angry Stan in the process of bleaching his hair. In the lines ‘Stanley, what are you doing to yourself?’, and ‘Don’t you think you’re taking this too far?’ the girlfriend character suggests that she’s not comfortable with Stanley’s behaviour. The song itself starts as Stan storms out of the room, leaving the girlfriend alone. The lyrics of Dido’s sections are now attached firmly to the girlfriend’s character (and are literally coming out of her mouth as she sings them), and these lines ‘…I’m wondering why I got out of bed at all/ The morning rain clouds up my window’ (2000a) sum up what we have just seen: a woman who is struggling with her life and is depressed by her current situation. However, the lines ‘Put your picture on my wall/ It reminds me, that it’s not so bad’ don’t fit with what we’ve seen and can’t really be attached to the girlfriend. When the chorus repeats, though, the camera moves down from the bathroom and we see Stan waking down into a basement whose walls are covered in pictures of Eminem. When we hear these lines again, therefore, they now become Stan’s, reemphasised by the camera focusing in on said pictures at the line ‘pictures on my wall.’ If we look only at the song, and ignore the music video, the girlfriend isn’t given a voice at all, and we are more inclined simply to attach Dido’s voice straight to Stan, who we find out is struggling with mental illness ‘so that shit helps when I’m depressed’ (giving context to the lines ‘…I’m wondering why I got out of bed at all’ and ‘…it’ll all be gray’ with such hopeless thoughts being symptomatic of depression), and, of course, says ‘I got a room full of your posters and your pictures man’ thus linking to

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‘Put your picture on my wall’, and the line ‘So when I have a shitty day, I drift away and put ‘em on’ linking with ‘It reminds me, that it’s not so bad.’ Railton and Watson identify the different categories of music video in their 2011 book Music Video and the Politics of Representation as: Pseudo-Documentary Music Video Art Music Video Narrative Music Video Staged Performance Music Video. The ‘Pseudo-Documentary’ Music Video is designed to apparently depict ‘the ‘real life’ of professional musicians’ (Watson and Railton 2011: 49-51), and we used to see this kind of video a lot when artists had already released a couple of big budget videos from an album and the label was looking for something a little less expensive. As well as ticking the budget box, however, such videos work because they seemingly give fans a ‘behind the scenes’ fly-on-the-wall experience, meaning they can bond with their favourite artists in a way they hadn’t been able to before: seeing them in unguarded ‘real’ moments backstage, travelling to a show, or at home etc. There aren’t many of these types of video in Eminem’s catalogue, but there are certainly elements of this technique in ‘Sing for the moment’ (the fourth single taken from The Eminem Show), where, in between shots of Eminem on stage and rapping to camera we see him laughing and joking backstage, talking on the phone, signing autographs, and emerging from a private plane onto the runway. Other videos like ‘Mockingbird’ or ‘Headlights’ are set up to seem like documentaries (complete with genuine footage of Hailie in the former and genuine childhood photographs of Eminem in the latter) but require more than a suspension of disbelief to take them as anything but videos manufactured for maximum emotional impact. The Art Music Video ‘operates as a site of creative expression which variously works as an aesthetic complement to the song or vies with it for artistic consideration’ (Watson and Railton 2011: 51-52). We see this in the video for ‘Just Don’t Give a Fuck’. The visuals are a broad stroke representation of the general mood of the song and its titular message of general nihilism, and the trailer park setting, which suggests a lack of wealth, alludes to the line in the song where Eminem speaks about a job where he washes dishes. Besides this, however, and a scene where

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Eminem stands in a large paddling pool surrounded by women in swimsuits (alluding to the line where he says he ‘raped the women’s swim team’ ((Eminem 1999c)) the video does little else to mirror the song’s lyrics through its visuals and is instead its own artistic representation of the song, working as an additional narrative to the one we’re presented through the lyrics alone. The Narrative Music Video can be a literal narration of the song– ‘a coherent visual narrative in its own right [with…] clearly defined characters […and] a set of events which bear upon those characters (Watson and Railton 2011: 57). ‘Guilty Conscience’, ‘Role Model’, and ‘White America’, for example, are all pretty straight-forward visual representations of the song’s lyrics, but others take a broader interpretational approach, introducing different/ additional narratives, themes, or ‘feels’ to the songs. We see this in the opening 30 seconds of ‘Fall’, where the opening line ‘Everybody’s been telling me what they think about me’ (2017) is expanded into a narrative where the first 30 seconds of the video are dedicated to Eminem looking at a series of negative comments on his social media account. It’s also used in ‘Spacebound’ where a ‘Sliding Doors’-type narrative is brought in to add a bit more visual interest to a lyric which is a pretty formulaic narrative about regret and loss. OR The Narrative Music Video can also be ‘shots of the band performing the song […] and a fictional diegesis that often works as an amplification of the story of the song which exceeds the limits of the lyrical narrative’ (Watson and Railton 2011: 57). In the music video for ‘Venom’, for example, we see shots of Eminem rapping about his detractors being able to ‘taste his venom’ interspersed with images of various people becoming ‘possessed’ by him (infected with his venom) until he is finally consumed himself by the Marvel character Venom. Staged performance Music Video ‘both embraces its promotional function and turns it into a virtue… these videos do not offer an image of apparently unfettered reality… nor do they seek to tell as story… they exploit a performance that is explicitly staged for the production of the video’ (Watson and Railton 2011: 58). The vast majority of Eminem’s videos involve a ‘performance’ of some kind in that he’s performing the lyrics to camera, usually without a microphone, and usually in some kind of scenario where what he’s saying ties in with what’s going on around him in the video. Where we do seem him on stage, like in the music video for D12’s ‘My Band’, it’s usually to underscore a section of the lyrics (in

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this instance, that he’s the main attraction and D12 are merely his backing group). ‘All music videos have an avowedly commercial agenda: they are first and foremost a commercial for an associated by distinct consumer product, the music track itself.’ (Watson and Railton 2011: 2) Jamie Sexton attributes part of Madonna’s star status to her ‘exploiting the medium of video, used by the music industry (and MTV) as a promotional device by tying memorable images to strong musical motifs and… by creating an array of fictional personas associated with the tone, tenor and theme of the song’ (Sexton 2007: 111). The same can be applied to Eminem, particularly via the lead single ‘novelty’ videos he put out for his first five albums: ‘My Name Is’, ‘The Real Slim Shady’, ‘Without Me’, ‘Just Lose it’, and ‘We made you’ where he appears in a number of different outfits parodying a number of celebrities. Who can forget Eminem dressed as Marilyn Manson, or Eminem’s ‘Rap Boy’ (Robin) to Dr. Dre’s ‘Blade’, or Eminem’s Spock to Dr. Dre’s Captain Kirk, or Eminem break-dancing dressed as Elvis, or… you get the idea. These images fuse with the catchiness of the songs to make them even more memorable than they would have been had they not come complete with music video. Storytelling Via the ‘Headlights’ Music Video Music videos can also succeed in intensifying then emotional content of the lyrics. The video for ‘Headlights’, for example, adds to the emotional weight of the lyrics by bringing a different viewpoint into the song, literally in this case, because we see most of the footage from the perspective of Eminem’s mother, Debbie. The video begins with a couple of establishing shots of setting, where we see a playground and a mid-shot of a sign that says ‘Marrusso’. A quick Google Maps search shows ‘Marrusso Park’ as a 0.7 mile trip (or 14 minute walk) from Eminem’s old house on Dresden Street, so we are quickly able to attach the story to the Detroit area that Eminem spent his formative years in and, for the purposes of the video’s narrative, where Debbie Mathers still lives. After establishing setting, we have a sequence shot from the point-of-view (POV) of Debbie (we aren’t officially told this until later, but for our purposes here it seems reasonable to refer to out mystery protagonist as Debbie) going outside to her mailbox and taking out a letter from ‘Detroit City Power’ which is stamped in red with ‘Urgent Final Notice’. We then go back into the house where, still in the POV shot, we see Debbie making breakfast in a

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small, cluttered kitchen, then taking it to eat in a small lounge (complete with Christmas tree in front of the TV where she lights up a cigarette and watches various clips of Eminem, including the scene from the video to ‘My Name Is’ where he raps about Debbie taking more drugs than he does. Debbie picks up the remote control and changes channels, but is faced with the scene from the ‘Without Me’ music video where Eminem is dressed as Debbie on the Jerry Springer Show spoof. Debbie changes the channel again, to a clip from the ‘Cleanin’ out my Closet’ video’, then switches back to the ‘Without Me’ clip before giving up and switching it off. At this point in the video, we are 45 seconds into the song, and so far the lyrics have seen Eminem expressing regret for his lyrics and looking to make amends, but little else. 45 seconds into the music video, we have seen that Debbie hasn’t moved on from the relative poverty of Dresden Street (or environs), is struggling to pay her bills, and is constantly reminded of the abuse she received from her son via his songs while also being reminded of his success and fame. Here we can see two thematically linked but ultimately separate narratives, one which is very much focused on Eminem’s thoughts and feeling, and one which are very much focused on Debbie’s. The video continues to follow Debbie’s POV as she approaches Eminem’s gated property, only to be turned away by security, then returning home to flip through a photo album, where we see a number of photographs of Eminem as a child. Debbie pauses on one, of a grinning Eminem holding a hamster in each hand, and the camera shows us a hand-­ written note at the bottom which says ‘4-1-83 Marshall and Hamsters’ before we segue into grainy video footage of (what we presume to be) fictionalised footage of Eminem sitting up in bed under a Detroit Tigers pendant happily flicking through baseball cards, then to footage of him happily hugging a woman with her back to us (presumably Debbie), then to Eminem in the back of a car, surrounded by boxes. The shot of Eminem in the back of the car plays as Eminem raps about ‘a car full of belongings’ (2013a), but, interestingly, the two shots prior to this, which show Eminem as content and happy with his mother juxtapose with the lyrics that underpin which explore how instead of his father’s departure pushing them closer together it pushed them further apart. We are getting further into the two contrasting viewpoints here: Eminem’s (in the lyrics) detailing an unhappy relationship with his mother in childhood, and Debbie (in the video) detailing a happy one. We get a further insight into Debbie’s

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thoughts and feelings a little later on where we see her writing a letter to Eminem which (if we freeze frame the video) reads: ‘Dear Marshall, I tried stopping by your house the other day but I was stopped at the gate. I wish you wouldn’t shut me out like this. Please give me another chance, I don’t understand what I’ve done to deserve this. Love, Mom.’ (Eminem 2014b)

Although it has been obvious for most of us until now that the POV in the video was Debbie’s, this is the first actual confirmation. It’s also interesting that Debbie still maintains she doesn’t know what she’s done ‘to deserve’ being ‘shut out’ by Eminem (both literally via the gates and figuratively by him not being in touch with her) despite clearly being aware of songs like ‘Cleanin’ Out My Closet’ where Eminem is quite overt about the issues he has with her. This suggests that she is either unwilling to take responsibility due to disputing the veracity of the ‘allegations’, doesn’t remember the incidents Eminem speaks of, or is in denial. Whichever suggestion is accurate, this brings another layer into the song, and adds weight to the lines where he expresses regret at recording ‘Cleanin’ Out My Closet’ and how he no longer plays it at concerts and cringes every time it comes on the radio (he does still maintain that the lyrics were accurate, though). The end of the video plays out the lyrics where Eminem and Debbie embrace, but after this, we move away from the lyrical content again as Eminem sends his own letter back to her, which a freeze frame shows to be the lyrics to this song. In a neat mirroring of the first shot of Debbie going to the post box, she reads the letter, and we see teardrops fall onto the page—what we can take to be tears of joy—which contrasts the bad news of ‘Urgent Final Notice’. We have a full narrative arc for Debbie in this video, then, that isn’t present in the lyrics, with a complete set of ‘story elements’ present, starting with: The status quo, ‘the position of the main character at the start of the story’ (Willett 2013: 34), which shows Debbie, our main character in this music video, struggling for money, living alone, constantly reminded of the rich and famous son who disowned her. If we then follow Yorke’s (2014: 24) ‘building blocks’ of story we see:

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The inciting incident, where Debbie decides to reach out to Eminem but is rejected (to the extent where she can’t even get past the security guards where he lives) Her desire to rekindle her relationship with him, shown through her reminiscing about him as a child via the photo album and the memories that come from it. The crisis where she mistakes a man in the park for Eminem, then returns home, alone, to get drunk and destroys her Christmas tree and decorations in anger and frustration, believing she’ll never be able to repair their relationship. The climax where she manages to see Eminem and they embrace. and the resolution where she receives the lyrics to this song in the post, which see Eminem apologising to her and telling her he loves her. This leads to Debbie being able to find peace, and the video ends with her looking through the photo album again, closing it as the line ‘I want a new life’ (Eminem 2013a) plays, suggesting she is now able to move on. The ‘home footage’ and the use of the photo album as pathetic devices in the video (more on such rhetorical devices in the next chapter) also shows a mirroring of Eminem in the ‘Mockingbird’ video, where Eminem reminisces about Hailie when she was younger, and laments the passing of time. This gives us a connection and an empathy between Eminem and Debbie, both showing that they have regrets (Debbie at the broken relationship with her son, and Eminem at the broken relationship with Kim), serving to demonstrate that despite their feud, they’re not that different after all, and understanding that may be the first step to mending their relationship. The video for ‘Role Model’ is a mixture of staged performance: Eminem rapping on a stage to a fictional audience; visual representation of the lyrics: e.g hitting Foghorn Leghorn with an acorn; extension of lyrical content: e.g Eminem saying he’s going to attempt to drown himself turns into an escape act where he is handcuffed and submerged in a giant tank in front of an audience; and visuals which aren’t apparent in the lyrics: e.g. his scenes dressed as a priest. Some videos introduce a different concept into the lyric narrative. In the video for ‘When I’m gone’, the first minute is dedicated to setting up a context for the confessional content of the lyrics. In a narrative which isn’t present in the lyrics, we are shown a small gathering of people, sitting in what appears to be a school gymnasium, listening to a man finish a speech at a lectern. During his wrap-up, the man talks about how he’s had

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‘a rough six years’, and how he’s ‘happy not to be the same person anymore.’ The event’s organiser then steps up the lectern, inviting someone else to ‘share’ with the group. Eminem stands, makes his way to the podium, and after introducing himself as ‘Marshall’ gives a Pinter-sized pause before launching into the song’s lyrics. In retrospect, with our subsequent knowledge of Eminem’s drug dependency, it doesn’t take much of a stretch to imagine this event as some kind of group therapy meeting, and the line in the song itself ‘Just take another pill, yeah I bet you you will’ (Eminem 2005) supports this, but the only important thing with regard to the video’s narrative is that the event is a setting where Eminem can realistically talk about his life without it seeming too artificial. The rest of the song follows the lyrics almost exactly (Hailie showing Eminem what she’s made—in the lyrics it’s never stated, but in the video it’s a chain of paper dolls; Eminem dismissing her, saying he’s too busy writing lyrics—in the video we see his pad, and on it is the lyrics to ‘When I’m gone’; Hailie piling boxes against the door so Eminem can’t leave; Hailie giving Eminem a locket to keep him ‘safe’ and a coin that says ‘number one dad’ etc. One line the video does give a bit of clarity to is where Eminem sings about ‘literally’ giving an arm to someone because he loves them so much and rolls up his sleeve to show his tattoo of Hailie. Without this visual nudge, the lyric may not have the impact (or meaning) he desired it to.

The End of the Story? In the edited text Cycles, Sequels, Spin-offs, Remakes, and Reboots, Anna Klein points out that individual texts are ‘joined by various bonds to other texts’ (Klein and Barton Palmer 2016: 1) and such bonds can be seen throughout history, including the ‘vast corpora of connected texts’ from the Middle Ages, which were ‘recognized as constituting “matters” defined by their general subject (Klein and Barton Palmer 2016 : 1). ‘Medieval Arthurian matter, in fact, can be considered an immense cycle of tales that intersect, repeat, revise, and reformulate in exhaustibly inventive fashions that remained productive for several centuries’ (Klein and Barton Palmer 2016: 1). Eminem may not be from Medieval times, and his body of work doesn’t stretch over centuries (well, technically it does seeing as he has released music in both the 20th and 21st centuries!) but his overall work can be viewed as a ‘matter’ in that it is comprised of connected texts that do indeed intersect, repeat, revise, and reformulate. As Volosinov says: ‘Any

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utterance […] is but one link in a continuous chain of speech performances’ (Volosinov 1973: 72) supported by Womack who asserts ‘everything that is said is part of an ongoing dialogue’ (Womack 2011: 48). The end of a text, then, doesn’t necessarily mean the end of its narrative, meaning a story can often have a life beyond its original text and be continued, altered, or taken in a different direction through the following means: Chronological extension (either extending the chronology to before the original narrative by way of a prequel, or after the original narrative by way of a sequel). Such an extension ‘extends the scope of the protoworld by filling its gaps, constructing a prehistory, or posthistory, and so on.’ (Pier 2011: 385); Continuation of narrative world—different works set in the same ‘atmosphere, geography, and society’ as previous works (Budra and Schellenberg 1998: 8); Re-writes (or modifications), where the new text ‘constructs essentially different versions of the protoworld, redesigning its structure and reinventing its story.’ (Pier 2011: 385). Chronological Extension (prequels and sequels) Individual song narratives can continue across songs via sequels, e.g. ‘Headlights’ is a sequel to ‘Cleanin’ Out My Closet’ and ‘Bad Guy’ is a sequel to ‘Stan’, or prequels, e.g. ‘Kim’ is a prequel to ‘’97 Bonnie and Clyde’. Sometimes songs that aren’t evidently linked in their lyrics become linked due to their music videos (for example, ‘River’ becomes a sequel to ‘Love the Way you Lie’, ‘Framed’ becomes a sequel to ‘3am’, and ‘Mockingbird’ and ‘Headlights’ become linked due to their ‘home video’ footage). In terms of albums, there are links across most seeing as Eminem’s songs invariably involve a conflict of some kind, be it lack of money, lack of recognition, too much recognition, conflict with family, his fans, his detractors, the FCC, the government, other artists, drugs, alcohol, or himself, and a cast of returning characters (Kim, his mother and father, Hailie, Dr. Dre etc.) But there are albums which are linked by more than such broad subject matter and have thematic links, such as The Eminem Show and Encore which are both largely ‘about’ the pressures of fame, and Relapse and Recovery which are both largely ‘about’ his drug addiction. The clearest album connection, however, can be found with The Marshall Mathers LP and The Marshall Mathers LP 2, which as their

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titles might suggest involves a lot of crossover with regard to content (including the album covers, which both feature Eminem’s childhood house), but perhaps the most interesting connection, though, is the song ‘Bad Guy’, which acts as a sequel to ‘Stan’. Miyamoto (2015) designed ’10 commandments’ for making a sequel, and they are listed below, with my responses to how ‘Bad Guy’ functions in its role as a sequel. 1. Thou Shall Ensure That the Original Warrants a Sequel. Whether or not ‘Stan’ warranted a sequel is, of course, open to debate, especially given as ‘Stan’ was such a strong self-contained song. There were, however, unanswered questions at the end of ‘Stan’ that ‘Bad Guy’ addresses, such as what became of Stan’s little brother Matthew, and how the Eminem character felt following the death of Stan. The song also functions as a way for Eminem to self-analyse, looking back on his successes (and failings) of the past, and trying to figure out how he moves forward despite the past clearly weighing heavily on him. 2. Thou Shall NOT Simply Remake the Original ‘Bad Guy’ introduces a separate narrative, so isn’t merely a remake of ‘Stan’. Despite both songs having melodic female vocal choruses, its sound is different, too, both with regard to its overall production, and the way it’s structured—which is essentially a part 1 and part 2, which are both very different sonically. There is enough here to tie it to the original song, as we’d expect in a sequel, and the narrative at the end with the car plunging off the bridge is the same in both songs, but Eminem’s own character is very different. In ‘Stan’, he is presenting himself as the ‘good guy’ who is trying his best to be good to his fans despite the pressures he’s under, but in ‘Bad Guy’ he situates himself as the, well, bad guy, someone whose mistakes have come back to haunt him. 3. Thou Shall Understand That Audiences Want Something new, but the same The character of Matthew Mitchell is new (well, his voice is new to us, at least), but there are many nods to the original song, including a recreation for the infamous car crash in ‘Stan’ but with Eminem in the ‘trunk’ instead of Stan’s girlfriend.

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4. Thou Shall NOT Dismiss What the Characters Accomplished in the Original Matthew’s mission is inspired by Stan’s story, so he doesn’t dismiss his accomplishes, but seeks to avenge him. 5. Thou Shall Take the Original Characters Forward The last time we met Matthew, he was six years old, now he is an adult, hell-bent on taking out his frustrations on Eminem. ‘Bad Guy’ also takes Eminem’s own story forward. 6. Thou Shall Remember That the Original Characters ARE the Franchise Stan may be dead, but he very much lives on through Matthew. And, of course, the character of Eminem is still vital to the plot. 7. Thou Shall Embrace the Mythos Created by the Original The mythos of Stan being in some way wronged by Eminem is indeed continued by Matthew and his desire to be a martyr is realised. 8. Thou Shall NOT Reinvent the Wheel As a story that aims to right a wrong, this both nods to the original, and is a classic ‘Quest’ story where ‘far away…there is some priceless goal, worth any effort to achieve…’ (Booker 2004: 69). 9. Thou Shall Know That a Sequel Is Only as Good as its Villain In Matthew Mitchell, we have a villain equally as disturbing and captivating as Stan. 10. Thou Shall Ask These Key Questions: What did they accomplish in the original or predecessor? Both achieved their aims of getting Eminem’s attention and making him ‘sorry’. What did they learn from that accomplishment?

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As both characters died, very little. Perhaps this symbolises that Eminem will survive any attempts to bring him down. What conflict(s) can we throw at them to challenge the skills or knowledge that they had learned? Stan learned too late that he was too impulsive and needed to think about the consequences of his actions. Matthew succeeded where Stan failed (making Eminem feel pain for his actions) but ultimately ended up with the same fate as his brother. Continuation of Narrative World Eminem’s hometown of Detroit looms large in his lyrics, getting 29 specific mentions across 20 songs (including cyphers and freestyles), and featuring in dozens of other songs where it’s not mentioned outright. Detroit can often ‘take on symbolic power and act as a dynamic force’ in the lyrics (Anderson 2006: 96) functioning either a nightmare that he needs to escape (‘If I had’), or a place of sanctuary that ‘made him’ (‘So Far’). Whatever the role Detroit plays in the songs, however, its frequent usage situates it as the main narrative world that Eminem sets his songs in, and any time he revisits it, he’s continuing its use as a ‘narrative world’. Another ‘world’ that Eminem constantly revisits is that of his childhood, and although he often plays fast and loose with the events he depicts (as we’ll explore in a moment in the ‘re-writes’ section), it is a ‘place’ he has visited throughout his career, from Infinite, right up to Music to Be Murdered By. Re-writes The ‘Tonya (Skit)’ track on Relapse represents one of the few occasions in his catalogue where Eminem’s voice isn’t heard at all. In a track that functions like a short radio drama, we are introduced to a female character (who we assume is Tonya) whose car has broken down and manages to get a lift from a stranger (whose car we, as the listener, are in). Once inside the car, a tacit assailant unwraps some tape and despite Tonya’s screams, proceeds to restrain her. In the following track, ‘Same Song and Dance’ Eminem re-imagines the events of the abduction that we’ve just heard. In this version, the assailant does all the talking, invites Tonya into the car and tells her to put her laundry in the back, then talks about her trying to kick out the windscreen. He also suggests that, unlike in ‘Tonya (Skit)’ this situation was engineered by him, and that he had caused the breakdown himself.

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References Sources 24x7 Team. (2020). ‘Rick Rubin Calls Eminem Obsessive About Rap.’https:// hiphop24x7.com/news/rick-­rubin-­calls-­eminem-­obsessive-­rap/) (accessed 13 July 2021). Anderson, L. ed. (2006) Creative Writing: A workbook with reading. Abingdon: Routledge. Barthes, R. (1974). S/Z. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Hill and Wang. Barthes, Roland (1977). Image Music Text. London: Fontana Press. Berger, J. (2013). Understanding a Photograph. London: Penguin. Blume, J. (2004). Six Steps to Songwriting Success, Revised Edition: The Comprehensive Guide. New York: Random House. Bolot, A. (2019). ‘How important is album art?’ https://www.varsity.co.uk/ music/16677 (accessed 15 July 2021). Booker, Christopher. (2004). The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. London: Continuum. Botha, M. (2016) ‘Microction.’, in The Cambridge companion to the English short story. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 201–220. Cambridge companions to literature. http://dro.dur.ac.uk/22834/1/22834.pdf. Bradley, A. (2009). Book of Rhymes. New York: BasicCivitas. Browning, Mark. (2009). Stephen King on the Big Screen. Bristol: Intellect. Budra. P. & Schellenberg, B.A (eds). (1998) Part Two: Reflections on the sequel. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Cox, A. (2005) Writing Short Stories. London: Routledge. Cueva, E.P & Byrne, S.N. (2014). A Companion to the Ancient Novel. United Kingdom: Wiley. DeLamater, J., & Collett, J. (2019). Social Psychology. Abingdon: Oxford. (accessed via https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Social_Psychology/ v0daDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1 on July 9 2021). Dolley, C., Walford, R. (2015). The One-Act Play Companion: A Guide to Plays, Playwrights and Performance. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing. Draper, J. (2008). A brief history of Album Covers. London: Flame Tree Publishing. Edwards, P. (2009). How to rap. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. Eftaiha, D. (2012). ‘Composition: The Theory and Psychology of Framing Your Image’. http://www.alternativephotography.com/composition-­the-­theory-­ and-­psychology-­of-­framing-­your-­image/ (accessed 15 July 2021). Eminem with Sasha Jenkins (2009). The Way I am. New York: Plume Books. Eminem, (2005). ‘When I’m Gone.’ In: Curtain Call [CD]. Aftermath; Interscope; Shady.

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Felluga, D. (2011). “Modules on Barhes: On the Five Codes.” Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. http://www.purdue.edu/guidetotheory/narratology/modules/barthescodes.html (accessed 16 June 2021). Fink, Edward J. (2014) Dramatic Story Structure: A Primer for Screenwriters. New York: Routledge. Fosbraey, G. & Melrose, A. (2018). Writing Song Lyrics: A Creative and Critical Approach. United Kingdom: Red Globe Press. Gerrard, S. (2017). The Modern British Horror Film. Rutgers University Press. Greenwood, T. (2015). ‘Study: Eminem has largest vocabulary in music’. https:// eu.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/music/2015/07/23/study-­ eminem-­largest-­vocabulary-­music/30574233/ (accessed August 20th 2020). Grønstad, A, & Vågnes, Ø. (2010). Coverscaping: Discovering Album Aesthetics. United States, Museum Tusculanum Press. Guardian Music (2014). ‘Eminem’s Rap God sets new world record for most words in a song.’ https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/sep/08/ eminem-­rap-god-new-world-record-most-words-in-a-song#:~:text=Then%20 wonder%20no%20more%2C%20for,of%204.28%20words%20per%20second. (accessed 29th August 2020). Hawkes, David. (1996). Ideology. London: Routledge. Hess, M. (2007). Icons of Hip Hop. Connecticut: Greenwood Press. Hobbs, T. (1999). ‘Eminem: his 30 greatest tracks, ranked!’. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/feb/20/eminem-his-30-greatest-tracksranked?CMP=gu_com (accessed 18 July 2022). Horner, B. & Swiss, T. (1999). Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell. Hsu, E., & Xu, H, (2017). ‘Analysis of Billboard’s Top 100 Songs and Lyrics (1964–2015)’ http://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs100/students/project11/ (accessed August 20th 2020). Hunter-Tilney, Ludovic. 2020. ‘Eminem’s new album Music to Be Murdered By has a torrent of words but precious few stories’. https://www.ft.com/content/f778b0a2-­3ba6-­11ea-­a01a-­bae547046735 (accessed 14 July 2021). Johnson, M. (2009). Pop Music Theory (2nd edition). Boston: Cinemasonique Music. Katie H. (2021). ‘Why Pencils Are Better Than Pens’. https://www.pens.com/ blog/why-­pencils-­are-­better-­than-­pens/ (accessed 21st August 2021). Ironstone, P., Leitch, C., Onyango, A., & Unruh, C. ‘Roland Barthes: Understanding Texts’. University of Waterloo. http://www.arts.uwaterloo. ca/~raha/700_701_web/BarthesLO/codes.html (accessed 16 June 2021). Johnson, B. (2013). ‘Eminem Finally Apologizes to Mom on ‘Headlights’. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-­n ews/eminem-­f inally-­ apologizes-­to-­mom-­on-­headlights-­248931/ (accessed 14 July 2021). Kérchy, A. (2016). Alice in Transmedia Wonderland: Curiouser and Curiouser New Forms of a Children’s Classic. North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc. King, Stephen. (2001). On Writing. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

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Klein, A.A. & Barton Palmer, R. (eds.) (2016). Cycles, Sequels, Spin-offs, Remakes, and Reboots: Multiplicities in Film and Television. United States, University of Texas Press. Lee, M. (2005). Writers on Writing: The Art of the Short Story. Westport: Praeger. Levitin, D. (2008). This is your brain on music. London: Atlantic Books. Machin, D. (2010). Analysing Popular Music. London: Sage. Maxxxamillion (2016). ‘Top definition: Runyan Avenue’. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Runyan%20Avenue (accessed 23 July 2021). Malik, W.H., Zaib, S, & Bughio, F.A. (2014). ‘Theory into Practice: Application of Roland Barthes’ Five Codes on Bina Shah’s ‘The Optimist”. In Academic Research International. Vol. 5 September 2014. McClinton, D. (2019). ‘Global attention span is narrowing and trends don’t last as long, study reveals’. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/ apr/16/got-­a -­m inute-­g lobal-­a ttention-­s pan-­i s-­n arrowing-­s tudy-­r eveals (accessed 22 July 2021). McKee, Robert. (1999). Story. London: Methuen. McQuillan, M. (ed.) (2000). The narrative reader. London: Routledge. Miyamoto, K. (2015). ‘The Ten Commandments of Writing Great Sequels’. https://screencraft.org/2015/10/02/the-­ten-­commandments-­of-­writing-­a-­ great-­sequel/ (accessed 9 July 2021). Nelles, W. (2012). “Microfiction: What Makes a Very Short Story Very Short?” Narrative, vol. 20 no. 1, 2012, p.  87–104. Project MUSE, https://doi. org/10.1353/nar.2012.0002. Ochs, M. (1996) 1001 Record Covers. Cologne: Taschen. Pattison, Pat. (2009). Writing Better Lyrics, 2nd edn. Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books. Piciucco, Pier Paolo (ed.) (2004). A Companion to Indian Fiction in English. New Delhi: Atlantic. Pier, J. (2011). Theorizing Narrativity. Germany: De Gruyter. Rafly, G. (2020). ‘18 Years Of ‘The Eminem Show’: 15 Facts About Eminem’s 2002 Magnum Opus’. https://www.thethings.com/18-­years-­of-­the-­eminem-­ show-­15-­facts-­about-­eminems-­2002-­magnum-­opus/ (accessed 15 July 2021). Rapaport, H. (2011). The Literary Theory Toolkit. Chichester: Blackwell. Rose, B. (2017). ‘Eminem finally apologized to his ex-wife Kim Scott on his new track “Bad Husband”’. https://uk.news.yahoo.com/eminem-­finally-­ apologized-­ex-­wife-­213925520.html (accessed 26 September 2021). Rubin, M. & Aaron, C. (1999). ‘Hot-tub orgies & kung fu breakdowns: a short history of the hip-hop skit.’ Spin. March 1999 edition. Searle, J.R, and Vanderveken, D. (1985) Foundations of Illocutionary Logic, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sexton, J. (2007). Music, Sound and Multimedia: From the Live to the Virtual. United Kingdom: Edinburgh University Press.

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Songfacts. (2021). ‘Eminem: We Made You.’ https://www.songfacts.com/facts/ eminem/we-­made-­you (accessed 9 July 2021). Stableford, B.  M. (2006). Science Fact and Science Fiction. United Kingdom: Routledge. Starkey, G. (2004). Radio in Context. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Stromberg, J. (2015). ‘The forgotten art of hitchhiking – and why it disappeared’. https://www.vox.com/2015/6/8/8737623/hitchhiking (accessed 24 July 2021). Vogler, C. (2007). The Writer’s Journey (3rd edition). California: Michael Wiese Productions. Volosinov, V.N (1973). Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, tr. Ladislav Matejka and I.R. Titunik. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vonnegut, K. (1985). ‘How to Write with Style’, in How to Use the Power of the Printed Word: Thirteen Articles Packed with Facts and Practical Information, Designed to Help You Read Better, Write Better, Communicate Better, ed. Malcolm S. Forbes, Billings S. Fuess, and International Paper Company, 1st ed (Garden City, N.Y: Anchor Press, 1985), 33. Watson, P., Railton, D. (2011). Music Video and the Politics of Representation. United Kingdom: Edinburgh University Press. Webb, J. (1998). Tunesmith. New York: Hyperion. Willett, A. (2013). Media Production: A Practical Guide to Radio & TV. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. Womack, P. (2011). Dialogue. Abingdon: Routledge. Yorke, J. (2014). Into the Woods. London: Penguin.

CHAPTER 3

Eminem and Voice

‘What makes plot truly memorable is not all of the action, but what the action does to the character. We respond to the character who changes, who endures the crucible of the story only to emerge a different person at the end.’ (Bell 2004)

This chapter will examine Eminem’s use of perspective in his songs, including an exploration of the three personas of ‘Marshall Mathers’, ‘Slim Shady’, and ‘Eminem’. The fractured nature of this confused (and confusing) identification of self will lead into a discussion of Eminem’s lyrics in terms of Freud’s personality theory, and Jung’s notion of duality and the ‘shadow’ self, including an exploration of how Eminem presents ‘his’ childhood in his songs. The notion of truth in Eminem’s lyrics will be discussed in terms of how it is manipulated (deliberately or accidentally), exaggerated, or distorted, how important such truth is anyway, and to what extent the theory of the ‘unreliable narrator’ is relevant to his output. The chapter will also discuss the other frequently occurring characters in his songs (his mother, Kim, and Hailie), and examine how they are represented both in individual songs and throughout his career, tracing their development over time.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 G. Fosbraey, Reading Eminem, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79626-6_3

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Perspective As is the case with most popular music, where the use of first-person pronouns is ‘startlingly high’ (Fosbraey and Melrose 2018: 43), Eminem favours the first person perspective to the extent where every one of his songs uses the word ‘I’. Within this perspective, the first person narrative can be split into two different components; the first-person First person direct (via the word you), or the first-person indirect (directed to a named person), and Eminem uses both techniques in his songs. I will start his chapter with first person direct addresses, examining the ‘you’ characters Eminem directs his speech towards, before moving on to first person indirect, where we will look at the characters Eminem ‘speaks’ to. Songs in the first person can also utilise second person utterances, and speech from third parties, so these techniques will also be examined. First Person Direct We hear this technique in the following: ‘My Name is’: ‘When you see my dad’ (1999a) ‘Role Model’: ‘You can try this at home’ (1999) ‘Marshall Mathers’: ‘You might see me’ (2000g) ‘Darkness’: ‘You can’t help me, no-one can’ (2020a) When we hear the singer use the word you, we are complicit in a dialogue, and this explains why so many people feel such an emotional connection with lyrics, even though, on a conscious level, we are well aware that, unless we personally know the singer, or the singer is using ‘you’ to describe an audience en masse, the ‘you’ cannot possibly refer to us personally. And yet how many times have you heard someone say, ‘those lyrics really spoke to me,’ or ‘it feels like they’re singing just to me’? Lyrics, like all good art, if written well, can enable the listener to suspend disbelief and forget such things. Even writing this book and with years of lyrical analysis behind me, such ‘magic’ in music still sustains, and that’s what keeps us all coming back for more. Good lyricists know this and capitalise on it.

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First Person Indirect This is where we have an address to a specific person, either through using their actual name, or via ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘they’. This technique may not quite achieve the bond with the listener that first person direct has, but it does have the benefit of it seeming as we, the listener, are privy to private information in the lyricist’s life, and this makes us feel a connection with them, as if we’re on the inside of a secret. Examples: ‘Stan’: ‘Dear Stan’ (2000) ‘Kim’: ‘What’s the matter, Kim?’ (2000) ‘The Kids’: ‘OK children, quiet down’ (2000) ‘White America’: ‘Fuck you, Ms Cheney’ (2002) ‘Cleanin’ out my Closet’: ‘I’m sorry mama’ (2002) Using ‘you’ as Replacement for ‘I’: This is where Eminem is actually talking about himself, but instead of using ‘I’, substitutes it for ‘you’ to bring the listener into the inside of the narrative. This serves the purpose of connecting the lyricist and the listener, as if we are both having a shared experience. Example: ‘Drug Ballad’: ‘You’re beginning to think…’ (2000) ‘Sing for the Moment’: ‘Fans turn on you’. (2002) ‘Must be the Ganja’: ‘Your dreams are getting fulfilled, ooh I’m literally getting a chill’ (2009i) ‘No Love’: ‘People just get sick ‘cause you spit’ (2010) ‘Evil Twin’: ‘You done called every woman a slut’ (2013a) In ‘3am’ Eminem uses this technique throughout the song, and in this case it succeeds in forcing the listener into the narrative alongside him, to live the horror by his side. The experience can be likened to the difference between, say, watching the film Silent Hill, or playing the video game. The film experience is unsettling because the images we’re being shown are deeply unpleasant, but to participate in it taps into something different: we are complicit in the actions and therefore share Marshall’s guilt. Being

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present in the song also means we can participate in the disjointed nature of the lyrics, and their ‘dreamlike’ feel where they run like a dream narrative—flitting from bizarre scene to bizarre scene. Third Person Although complete third person narratives are absent in Eminem’s catalogue, he still uses third person utterances on occasion. According to Burroway ‘the third person is the voice with the greatest range or effects, from total objectivity to great intimacy and is broken into three techniques: The omniscient narrator, who may know anything past, present, or future and is free to tell us readers what to think or feel; The limited omniscient who may go inside the mind of one or two characters and observe from the outside; The objective, who may know no more than the person observing the scene’ (Burroway 2007: 46). In the below instances of third person utterances Eminem is using a limited omniscient perspective, allowing the listener to ‘get inside’ the thoughts and feelings of the characters before Eminem switches back to his more usual first person direct or indirect. ‘The Kids’: ‘But Stacey knew it was Bob’ (2000) ‘River’: ‘He’s comin’ home with his neck scratched, to catch flack’ (2017a) ‘Like Home’: ‘All he does is watch Fox News like a parrot and repeats’ (2017) ‘Guilty Conscience’: ‘Fed up with life and the way things are going, he decides to rob a liquor store’ (2000) ‘Buffalo Bill’: ‘Always, you can see him lurkin in the hallways’ (2009) Who Is Eminem, Who Is Marshall, Who Is Slim Shady? Eminem, Slim Shady are both characters created by songwriter Marshall Mather’s imagining, just as ‘characters invented and played by [David] Bowie such as Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Halloween Jack and The Think White Duke’ (Rojek 2011: 122): it’s just that Mathers doesn’t dress them up in the same way. His dressing up is done internally, through editing himself into different characters and giving them different voices in record, despite them looking the same in his album artwork, publicity shots, and music videos. Less obviously, perhaps, Marshall Mathers the songwriter has also invented Marshall Mathers the character for his lyrics,

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a character who should be looked upon as fictious as Slim Shady and Eminem despite assertions to the contrary from the songwriter himself (more on this a little later). For the purposes of analysis, then, we need to realise which ‘voices’ are present, be it Marshall Mathers III: the lyricist, signed to a record label and aware that he’s writing for an audience of millions; ‘Marshall’: the version of himself he allows the public to see via his lyrics; ‘Eminem’: the rapper, whose name appears on all the songs; and ‘Slim Shady’: the rapper’s immoral alter ego. Much has been written about how to distinguish between these characters, and also we should refer to the man behind it all. A 2009 interview with Jonathan Ross doesn’t help us: ‘Jonathan:

OK, so should I call you Eminem or Marshall or Slim, what do you like to be called? Eminem/Marshall: Eminemslimmarshall Jonathan: Eminemslimmarshall, all in one word Pause Eminem/Marshall:  (affecting ‘Yoda’ voice) Yoda you can call me.’ (Friday Night with Jonathan Ross 2009) In a rather unhelpful answer to the question of the differences between Slim Shady, Eminem, and Marshall, Bradley & DuBois suggest that ‘his rhymes provide the answer’ (Bradley and DuBois 2010: xxxvi). I suppose this is true inasmuch as there are occasions where there are utterances like ‘My name is Slim Shady’, or ‘I’m just Marshall Mathers’, but elsewhere things aren’t so obvious. Eminem himself suggests, ‘“Just Don’t Give a Fuck” is Slim Shady, Eminem is “Lose Yourself”, and ‘Mockingbird’ is Marshall’ and these are the most blatant examples of the differences’ (Eminem 2009: 36). Some of the lazier criticism suggests that ‘Slim Shady’ has a voice distinct from his Eminem or Marshall co-protagonists, and that Slim Shady utterances involve a ‘more high-pitched voice’ (Genius News 2020), but this is incorrect. ‘Slim Shady’ may be tonally different to Eminem and Marshall, with a more pinched nasal delivery, but he’s certainly no higher pitched on the whole. We can see this in the songs Eminem suggests highlight the differences between the characters: ‘Just don’t give a fuck’ (apparently Slim Shady) has a highest vocal note of G4, but ‘Mockingbird’ (apparently Marshall) has a highest note one tone higher with A4, as does ‘Lose yourself’ (apparently Eminem). I remain

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unconvinced for the most part that there is an obvious, defined difference between these three characters, and even if one character is introduced as the narrator, it doesn’t necessarily remain in their voice throughout. As per Eminem’s own quote above, ‘Just Don’t Give a Fuck’ is supposed to ‘be’ Slim Shady’ but halfway through, in a mock AA meeting, he introduces himself as Marshall Mathers. So called ‘Marshall’ songs contain the violent imagery many would associate with Slim Shady, and so called ‘Slim Shady’ songs contain emotional depth and biographical snippets many would associate with Marshall. More interesting is what Eminem does with these characters, how he uses them to sit within a narrative, to connect with the listener, and to function in different ways in order to elicit different reactions.

Truth? One of the major ways lyrics are susceptible to manipulation and distortion of truth is through the act of rhyming. While many lyric writing self-­ help books suggest that a writer ‘always have a rhyming dictionary to hand’, actively seeking rhyme in this way means a sacrifice of truth as the lyricist is led to say things for how they sound, rather than their relevance to the song’s narrative. ‘Rap’s reliance on rhyme distinguishes it from almost every other form of contemporary music and from most contemporary literary poetry’ (Bradley 2009: 51) and ‘accounts for a large part of what makes rap great’ (Bradley 2009: 54), and Marshall Mathers is considered a ‘master’ of rhyme (Lavin 2020) and attaches so much importance to it that he often writes his lyrics by searching for good rhymes first (sometimes copying ones he liked from one sheet to the next, or cannibalising rhymes from other song drafts ((Eminem and Jenkins 2009: 166 and 194)). Rosen and Baines note that ‘The Way I am’ is cast in a metrical form quite unusual for rap—a continuous succession of unresolved anapests…, a fact that makes the song feel highly contrived, despite the claim that he has no choice but to “just blurt” out his unmediated thoughts’ (Rosen and Baines 2002: 115). As long as Mathers is using a process that involved rhyme and meter, prioritising words for their abilities to rhyme over their abilities to express meaning, we should certainly be wary of reading his lyrics as straight autobiography. In the main, though, the search for ‘truth’ depends on how we decide to ‘read’ musical texts. With regard to the song format, we can read it in a number of ways. We can look at in terms of how it relates to the biography of the artist, we can measure

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it against their previous works, we can measure it against the rest of the songs on the album it appears on, or we can look at it as a self-contained text that occurs in its own self-contained universe. In other words, we can stay inside the song, or we can look outside it. If we choose to limit our analysis of a song only to the world that is presented to us within its running time, then any questions of ‘truth’ are only relevant to how such truths are presented or believed by the characters inside that song. Comparing this technique to other media, in the novel The Shining, Jack Torrance sees Delbert Grady and believes him to be real, so in Jack Torrance’s world he is real, even though we as readers know him to a figment of his imagination, or in the world of The Hobbit, Orcs, Hobbits, and Dragons are real whereas in our world they’re not. In the song ‘Insane’, then, if our narrator/ protagonist ‘Marshall’ presents us with a narrative of an abusive stepfather, then that character becomes real in the context of the song, even if our research tells us such a person never existed in the real life of the songwriter Marshall Mathers. This gives Mathers the freedom as a lyricist to base in fiction such narratives as the ones in ‘Insane’ but sprinkle them with parts of his biography to make them more realistic or far-fetched, depending on what he wants the listener’s reaction to be. After all, Mathers might not want us to know certain things about him. As Elvis Costello says: ‘This… [is] pop music, not confession’ (Costello 2015: 96). In some of my own songs I’ve shrouded ‘some of the images in metaphor so the specifics would be known only to myself’ (Fosbraey 2018) because although I wanted to write the lyrics to get certain things out of my system, I didn’t want anyone else to know anything too private. Eminem may seek to speak in another voice because using his ‘real’ one ‘makes […him] feel exposed and vulnerable. It’s the same kind of phenomenon that happens when there is real eye contact and each person experiences the presence of the other […] Writing of almost any kind is exhibitionistic; writing with real voice is more so’ (Elbow 1988: 309). As it is, then, we only ever get as close to Marshall Mathers III the songwriter as he wants us to get. If a listener chooses to look beyond the lyrics, the notion of ‘truth’ depends on what extra information is digested, whether it’s going to see the artist in concert, watching their music videos, reading biographies about them, following them on social media etc. The more ways we engage with them beyond the music itself, the more we are likely to start liking them as people rather than the remote and enigmatic artists they might have seemed when we first started engaging with their music. As

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such a relationship progresses, the lines between their personal lives and their lyrics begin to blur, and it is all too tempting to start attaching events in real life to events portrayed in the lyrics. Taylor Swift, for example, an artist who has an enormous social media following and therefore engages with her listeners en masse beyond the lyrics themselves, sees her songs frequently put under the microscope, with journalists and fans alike poring over each line to come to the conclusion, as Spin magazine does it in its does-exactly-what-it-says-on-the-tin article ‘This Is Who Every Taylor Swift Song Is About’ (Gordon 2017). The article even sets out its ‘methodology’ as: ‘We’ve only picked out songs where we could pin down a primary quote from Swift about its subject, or where the contextual evidence was overwhelming—a line in the lyrics, a reference in the hidden message of her liner notes, particularly dogged tabloid and/or fanbase speculation, and stuff like that’ (Gordon 2017). With Eminem, an artist who has so far largely rejected social media as a way to communicate, if we are going in search of ‘truth’, we have to make do with media articles, interviews, and biographies (of which there are plenty), and try to piece ‘facts’ together from there. The problem with this is that Eminem recognised from the start of his career that fans and journalists would try to ‘figure him out’, and he’s subsequently delighted in playing with the listener, wilfully blurring the lines between truth and fiction, using parts of his biography to suggest reality, then bringing in fictional elements to turn his apparently ‘real’ life into often violent or disturbing narratives. ‘Eminem is always acutely aware that he is writing and rapping ‘for’ an audience, and plays to this, manipulating his lyrics to demonstrate such awareness, understanding that his lyrics will be taken as serious insights into his thoughts, rather than a performer speaking tongue-in-cheek lyrics in character’ (Fosbraey 2015: 21). How much of Eminem’s content is fictitious or factual, therefore, can only be a matter of speculation, and something he has frequently teased fans and critics with. In one of his verified annotations on the ‘Genius’ website, Eminem writes a comment in response to the ‘Shady XV’ lyric: ‘Pathological liar, oh, why am I such an asshole’ (2014), saying ‘…or am I though?’ (Genius 2016a), and in a comment in response to ‘Criminal’ and the lyrics: ‘The mother did drugs, hard liquor, cigarettes and speed’ (Eminem 2000g) he said: ‘I meant that literally. My mom would LITERALLY grind up DVD’s [sic] of the movie “Speed” & snort it’ (Genius 2016b). The more we carry out such searches for ‘clues’ or ‘evidence’, the more we move away from the content of the lyrics themselves and the characters

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contained within them, and the more we come to believe that the lyrics are simply straight factual reportage of the real-life events outside them. In his 2000 book Angry Blonde, when Eminem complains of people ‘overanalyzing’ his lyrics by attaching them to what he’s like as a person, what’s actual happening is they’re underanalyzing, ignoring the lyrics as self-contained entities and skipping straight to their author. Eminem even points to this kind of ‘analysis’ in ‘Criminal’, mocking critics who think ‘what [he] talk[s] about on a record, that [he] actually do[es] in real life’ (Eminem 2000g), before threatening to kill them because he’s a ‘criminal’. Görey suggests that ‘as a first step, we must assume that there is an identifiable distinction between real events and their narrative representations’ (Görey 2017: 6) but ‘a common associational linkage suggested by the voice sends us towards the person and the biography of the singer’ (Bennett et al. 2006: 13), with many critics ‘read[ing] the lyrics literally, as transparent disclosures of the singer’s biography (Hopps 2009: 9), and in the case of rap/ hip-hop ‘our culture… usually treats [it]… as if it were transparent, as if its poetry were nothing more than the clear cellophane wrapper around its “literal” meaning’ (Bradley 2009: 89). But such readings underestimate the art of songwriting, doing a disservice to the imagination of the lyricist. Are we to assume that lyricists are nothing more than glorified diarists who set their entries to music? What about their abilities to create fictional characters, storylines, and settings, like novelists or scriptwriters? Like any writer, lyricists can be as economical with truth as they wish, and ‘although many artists see songwriting as a way to vent, confess or talk about their personal lives, this doesn’t mean that the lyrics they are producing are accurate reflections of truth’ (Fosbraey and Melrose 2018: 12). What appears to be a straight autobiographical narrative cannot be taken as wholly factual as in ‘writing a first-person narrative, you must remember that although you are using the word “I,”… you are creating a character from whose head you are thinking’ (Bodden 2009: 8). Every one of the tracks Eminem has publicly released has at least one first person utterance in it, but that doesn’t mean that these uses of ‘I’ or ‘me’ are representations of his true self, any more than the ‘I’ at the start of The Old Curiosity shop is Charles Dickens rather than the narrator Master Humphrey, or Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle’s narration is a window into the soul of Paul Schrader. Dickens and Schrader may be speaking through Humphrey and Bickle respectively, and parts of their own personalities may be present within them, but Humphrey and Dickens and Bickle and Schrader are (rightly) taken as different people. The same separation is not

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always afforded to lyrics, where the ‘I’ is attached squarely to the performer and/ or the songwriter, and this is where lyrics definitely differ from poetry, for ‘whereas an absence of the poet’s body was crucial to a whole historical phase of western poetry…, its presence in popular song is the somehow reassuring guarantee that all ambiguity and division, all speech acts, all speakers, the whole puzzle, are to be referred in the end to one root, to one human being’ (Fiori 2000: 190–191). Mathers himself seems to delight in keeping the proverbial waters muddied; for example, in his introduction to his 2000 book Angry Blonde he says: ‘This book is made by Slim Shady, from the mind of Marshall Mathers as seen from Eminem’s point of view’ (Eminem 2000g: 3). As the book is essentially a transcript of the lyrics from his first two albums, we can assume that this lack of defined authorship permeates the songs, too. As Mathers goes on to say in 2009s The Way I am: ‘The line that separates Slim from Em can be really thin. Where does this Shady guy stop and Eminem come in?… and there’s a third thing: When does Slim Shady kick in, when does Eminem step in, where does Marshall begin? (Eminem and Jenkins 2009: 36). Listening to Eminem in interviews just leads to more confusion. ‘I have to tell it like it is,’ he says in an interview with Anthony Bozza in 1999. ‘What I sit around and talk about, you know, I have to go say to the world, otherwise what would I be’ (Bozza 2004: 100–101). Well, based on his lyrical output, he’d be a rapist and murderer, for a start. Even his own autobiography The Way I am provides no satisfactory closure regarding which parts of the song ‘Brain Damage’ were factual and which fictionalised, as he says‘…some people think I’m making it up, but nope—that shit really happened. My brain really was fucking bleeding out my ear’ (Eminem and Jenkins 2009: 78). And in the same book: ‘I’m really just a normal guy. I walk the dog. I mow the lawn. I’m out there every Sunday, talking to myself, buck naked, mowing the lawn with a chainsaw’ (Eminem and Jenkins 2009: 79). When it comes to blurring the line between fact and fiction, Eminem certainly isn’t the first artist to use this as a technique. Rippl et. al note that ‘…from the late nineteenth century onward’ autobiography and fiction started to interact and blur. And ‘when postmodern writers began to play games with the concept of autobiography, the boundaries between autobiography, biography, and fiction became even more porous’ (Rippl et al. 2013: 6). Munro goes on to say that ‘…many writers during the 1930s were writing in an ambiguous, first-person descriptive vein, a then

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fashionable genre which blurred any clear line between fiction and autobiography—truthful to experience but not necessarily to fact’ (Munro 2017: 250). Nünning notes that in contemporary fiction ‘the boundaries between “reliable” and “unreliable” narrators are blurred…’ and that it is ‘even more difficult to decide which part of the narrator’s thinking and behaviour is morally acceptable and which not…’ (Erll et al. 2008: 380). If we accept Eminem’s songs as contemporary fiction (albeit with non-­ fictional overtones), this certainly fits the songs where, usually in the guise of Slim Shady, Mathers writes about (among other things) rape, murder, and sexual abuse, and we are invited—almost dared—to decide whether we link such utterances back to the author, or the fictionalised character voicing them. As part of his work in ‘separating out ‘reliable’ and ‘unreliable’ narrators” (Selden and Widdowson 1993: 20). Wayne C. Booth posits that ‘the third person… [comes] close to the values of the ‘implied author” (Selden and Widdowson 1993: 20), and the fact that Mathers writes almost exclusively in the first person and avoids the third (as do the majority of songwriters) would suggest that his narrators are unreliable and thus not speaking his own personal opinions. In terms of merging his real-life persona with his fictionalised creations, Mathers has a lot in common with writer Hunter S. Thompson, a ‘wildly unreliable narrator’ (McHale 2006: 94) whose ‘…style of journalism to which he gave the soubriquet ‘gonzo’ [was] a vivid, outlandish blend of fact and fiction in which the writer features prominently’ (Taylor 2005). The Mathers/ Eminem/ Slim Shady combination mirrors Thompson’s own ‘schizophrenic persona, divided playfully into the two characters Dr. Hunter S. Thompson and Raoul Duke’ (McHale 2006: 94) where, like when Mathers writes as ‘Marshall’, his own real name is a fictionalised version of himself. ‘What… [Thompson] sought wasn’t a mere recounting of the facts, but an actual understanding of the heart of the world in which he found himself, and the events unfolding herein. The truth that lay behind the bald facts wove a story with personal experience and emotional impact into narrative (Okapi 2012: 7). Like Thompson before him, Mathers may fabricate, exaggerate, and play shock tactics to get a reaction out of audience and critics alike, but that’s not to say there isn’t truth in what he’s saying. Not truth in the realism sense, but an emotional truth that filters through the fabrication to show his feelings, vulnerabilities, and emotional make-up. In the song ‘97 Bonnie and Clyde’, for example, he includes certain details of his real life, not least the fact he’s called Marshall, has a wife

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called Kim and a daughter called Hailie (whose real-life voice appears on the track), then mixes this with an imagined narrative where he murders Kim then drives her to the lake and throws her body into the water as Hailie watches. According to Mathers, he wrote the song ‘to get back at her [Kim]… to piss her off… I put a lot of my personal shit out there’ (Eminem 2000g: 31). So even though the song is fictionalised to a large degree and Eminem is fabricating the facts, he isn’t fabricating the emotion, and the song serves as a representation of an emotional truth. Kress says that when writing about our own lives ‘…you were there emotionally. You felt whatever exaltation, fear, panic, tenderness, or despair the situation evoked’ (Kress 2005: 6), and Roberts defines such writing as ‘metaphoric fiction [which] invokes a translation of this actual world through one or other algorithm of difference’ (Roberts 2006: 135). The horrific scenes contained within ‘’97 Bonnie and Clyde’ therefore may be mirroring the (real) emotional turmoil Mathers was in at that time, even if Mathers is telling us the story as a wholly unreliable narrator. As McKee says: ‘Mere occurrence brings us nowhere near the truth. What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what we think about what happens’ (McKee 1999: 25). According to Phelan ‘misreporting’ is a major component of unreliable narration (Phelan 2004: 219), and once ‘any unreliability is detected all the narration is suspect’ (Zunshine 2006: 78). In a song like ‘Brain Damage’, therefore, where much seems factual, as soon as we come across a line which appears unreliable (e.g. when Eminem describes his brain falling out of his skull) the whole song becomes suspect in terms of factual accuracy. In ‘Cum on Everybody’, Eminem raps ‘I tried suicide once and I’ll try it again’ (Eminem 1999d), and this is statement is corroborated via Fox News which says that following the failure of his first album Infinite Eminem attempted suicide using an overdose of Tylenol (Fox News 2015). As with ‘Brain Damage’, however, Eminem includes fantastical elements such as having AIDS and nailing his foot to his car, and these cast doubts over the validity of any true statements. We must also consider that Eminem, particularly in his early career, had a reputation for writing ‘shock theatre’ (Dimery, ed. 2005: 875) to uphold, and this might have led to him skewing the truth in order to adhere to what’s expected of him. In ‘As the world turns’ for example, he juxtaposes a believable and everyday image ‘It all started when my mother took my bike away’ with the subsequent line ‘cause I murdered my guinea pig and stuck him in the microwave’ (Eminem 1999e). This second image

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certainly fits with the ‘lunacy’ (Bozza 1999). Eminem wanted for his Slim Shady character, but the truth actually suggests it was his Uncle Ronnie that was the rodent-killer as ‘when he was 11, he put a hamster in the microwave—it exploded’ (Eminem and Jenkins 2009: 135). While we can rationally assume he has never committed the murders he raps about himself doing—as logic dictates such crimes would have led to numerous life sentences—we can’t say with such certainly that he didn’t commit the numerous acts of domestic abuse he raps about. It’s estimated that ‘as much as ‘50% of domestic violence incidents go unreported’ (Spectrum News 2019) in the US, and the frequency with which Eminem returns to such narratives (and with similar detail in each) may suggest there is at least some truth in this (but there is no verification). Other events make their way onto tracks in a way that can be verified as references to real life. Following his penalty of two years of probation for carrying a concealed weapon in 2001 (he avoided jail time because the gun was unloaded), critic Brian McCollum said ‘we can bank on for sure that all this police business and court activity will be commented on in some way on the next record’ (Bowes 2001). Indeed, a year later, on The Eminem Show, Eminem references in ‘The Kiss (skit)’, ‘Hailie’s Song’, and ‘Without Me’, proving that in this case art is inspired by real life. In a creative writing handbook on characters and viewpoint, author Orson Scott Card suggests that whether we mean to or not, we will constantly draw on our own memories for incidents and characters in our fiction. He goes on to say that the way to discover good characters for our fiction is to search randomly through our memories and ask ourselves if any of them are usable in a story. If the memories themselves are too specific and abstract to be of use in our fiction, the characters themselves, with some tweaks, might not be, and they may find themselves, in some form or another, embedded in our stories (Card 1999: 31–32). ‘The danger of delving into your own memory is that you’ve only lived one life […] This is where personal cliches come from, constantly mining the same spot in memory […] You have to make a conscious effort to keep from remembering the same things in the same way. (Card 1999: 31–32)

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Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that there are some songs where Mathers relays nothing but his own authentic memories. Seeing as the condensed format of song lyrics allows the writer to tell a great deal of information in a short period of time, it’s likely that these memories would have been exhausted after a few songs early on in his career. Mathers can revisit these memories as much as he wants, but after a while, they become what Card calls ‘personal cliches’. So, in order to keep the audience entertained, and to remain current and relevant, Mathers needs to move away from these memories. But, if he wants to carry on telling stories about his childhood yet has already told the story enough times for it to become one of his personal cliches, his only option is to start re-writing his own biography, bringing in information we haven’t heard before via fictional elements. This may explain songs like ‘Insane’ and ‘My Mom’ which go beyond anything he’s ever written about before in terms of abuse. Truth and memory thus become important only in terms of keeping characters consistent within the confines of their own songs (or series of songs), and our real selves become entwined with fictional representations of ourselves. Who Marshall Mathers is in terms of how he is presented in the lyrics may well have changed over time, morphing from what could be considered straight and factual biography (we might suppose ‘Rock Bottom’ to be an example of this) into a character whose biography strays away from that of Marshall Mathers the lyricist. It’s a frequent joke that Stephen King always has male protagonists who are authors, live in Maine, and are recovering alcoholics. Eminem’s characters Slim, Marshall, and Eminem all had disruptive childhoods, all had their fathers leave them, and all accuse their mother of negligence and substance abuse. But does Slim Shady want to be a good father? Does Marshall have a desire to rape a swim team? The characters come from the same nucleus (the mind of lyricist Marshall Mathers) and he never suggests that they are separate entities. In fact, he says the opposite, recognising that Slim Shady is a part of him (what he identifies as a dark part) and only differs from Marshall in terms of its wants and drives. In ‘My Mom’ Eminem takes us back to his ‘childhood’ where he speaks from the perspective of his child self to voice his horror at being fed paint thinner for his dinner, and how Valium was ‘in everything, food that I ate/ The water that I drank’ (Eminem 2009). In this instance we have a clear example of how details can be manufactured for the purposes of rhyme, with the substance ‘paint thinner’ presumably only chosen for its ability to form a perfect rhyme with ‘dinner’, and, indeed, the same for the ‘plate

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full of painkillers.’ Elsewhere, the steak that had Valium sprinkled on as seasoning was presumably selected for its ability to rhyme with ‘stomach ache’ (surely the real Mathers family would have been too poor to afford steak?!) ‘Insane’, a song that Eminem describes as ‘pretty much all fiction’ (Pareles 2009), sees Eminem telling the story of a ‘stepfather’ who repeatedly abuses him until he can’t take it anymore and hangs himself, only to be raped again as he struggles for breath. A vengeful Eminem then tries to bite the stepfather’s face off, bites the blades off a chainsaw, plays ping pong with his own eye as the ball and his penis as the bat, then lays down on the lawn under a chainsaw. Even within all this, Eminem emerges from this nightmare into reality, breaking down the 4th wall in a brief conversation with Dr Dre: ‘Shady what the fuck you saying?’/ ‘I don’t know, help me,’ (2009) before returning to the depraved narrative. This brief interlude of sanity/ awareness suggests this song, like so many of the others on Relapse is merely a fantasy conjured up by a twisted, struggling mind. If we look at truth not as an objective recounting of the facts, then, but as a subjective expression of them, we may get closer to what Eminem is doing in these three songs. About his autobiographical text Mr Tulsi’s Store: A Fijian journey Historian and author Brij Lal says: In recording my experiences, I have privileged truth over accuracy, attempting to catch the thoughts and emotions rather than dry facts about village life. For obvious reason, some names have had to be changed and some conversations imagined. I have tried to recall the past creatively, imaginatively, rendering factual, lived experience through the prism of semi-fiction. I call this kind of exercise ‘faction’ writing. (Lal 2001: x)

What’s interesting here is that Lal sees ‘accuracy’ and ‘truth’ as different things, with him attaching more importance to emotions than ‘dry facts’. This kind of technique, seeing ‘truth’ as something that can be told via a type of emotional expressionism rather than factual realism may well be something Eminem is employing in his more far-fetched lyrics. In ‘Dr West (Skit)’, Eminem’s experiences of the Doctor’s office may not be laid out for us as they occurred in real-life, but the emotions of fear, confusion, and self-loathing he may have felt during the conversation are perhaps more accurately portrayed by this fictitious re-imagining of the scenario. Likewise, ‘My Mom’ and ‘Insane’, might not factually represented his

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childhood, but the horrific images he puts across in the lyrics immediately portray the discomfort and helplessness he may have really felt as a child. We might also note that such escapes into flights of fantasy, perhaps painting a picture of a childhood that was worse than his own could work as what Fletcher defines as ‘a defensive outcome of memory, from which the latter might be inferred and reconstructed’ (Fletcher 2013: 93). Horsdal goes on to suggest that ‘…the experience of coherence may break down as a consequence of traumatic experiences’ (Horsdal 2012: 13). Rippl et al. observe that ‘…trauma often registers as gaps in the narrative structures of autobiographical memory’ (Rippl et al. 2013: 9) so even if Eminem is giving fictionalised accounts of his childhood (and in the case of ‘Insane’ and ‘My Mom’, for example, it would be tough to argue that the events within the lyrics actually occurred in real life) the overriding mood, and the trauma are real, and are true emotions painted on a fabricated canvas. ‘Trauma specialists note that patients’ re-confrontation with the traumatic experience and attempts to verbalize and narrativize the trauma may support the process of recovery’ (Rippl et al. 2013: 10). We can see this in both Relapse and Recovery where Eminem recounts the memory of his overdose, but perhaps throughout his career more broadly, where he tells numerous stories about his childhood. In autobiographical writing there can be ‘blanks in […the] narrative that point towards the unavailability and irretrievability of memories, either because they are absent, or because they are too inexpressible to be written about adequately’ (Rippl et  al. 2013: 85). Eminem may not be fabricating his memories through choice, then, but preferring exaggerated, fictionalised re-imaginings of certain scenarios because the real memories were either unreachable or too painful to re-live. ‘…most contemporary trauma theorists in literary and cultural studies use the notion of “trauma” […] to encompass both the event and the aftermath’ (Rippl et al. 2013: 9). This from Marshall’s mother, Debbie Nelson’s, autobiography concerning Marshall’s father: ‘…he grabbed me by the hair, dragged me out of our apartment and up the stairs. He pounded my head off the neighbour’s door. Then he smashed my head into the door over and over. Every time I fell forward he hit me again […] Marshall was fourteen months old, too young to understand what was happening. But even he had started to point at the marks on my face and say, ‘Boo, boo” (Nelson 2008: 37). Freud identifies ‘the early period before the age of 1 ½ years’ as being significant to the production of such memories, and that ‘the age at which they [children] take in information of this kind is […] from six to seven

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months on’ (Fletcher 2013: 1–2). If this is true, then Debbie Nelson’s claims that Marshall was ‘too young to understand’ what was happening around him wasn’t the case, and he was being traumatised by the domestic violence he was witnessing between (as early as) 6 months to 14 months old, which is when Debbie took Marshall away with her to live with her own mother. In Eminem’s case, then, he continues to suffer trauma despite being many years away from his childhood. Bronfen looks at trauma in terms of truth and fiction, saying that ‘What the analyst must redress is not the actual events but the way they have been reformulated in phantasy. This is not to say that actual traumatic experiences did not occur, nor that they had no significance for psychic process. Rather, Freud’s compelling insight consists in his insistence that precisely because hysterical phantasy blurs the boundary between what is fiction, between what has been experienced and what has been transmitted as a story […] it is the phantasies one must take seriously. They produce real, psychosomatic anguish…’ (Bronfen 1998: 255)

In the case of ‘My Mom’ and ‘Insane’, then, the anguish of his real childhood experiences are materialising as ‘phantasies’ in these songs’ fictitious narratives. This can also be seen in earlier songs, such as ‘Brain Damage’, where Eminem talks about his whole brain falling out of his skull and then him sewing it back in. Obviously the actual depicted event didn’t occur as it’s physically impossible, but the line may be true from an emotional perspective, putting into words and images the devastation that Eminem felt about the events of that day. Likewise, in ‘Kim’ Eminem clearly didn’t kill his wife and watch her bleed, but he might have fantasised about it, so what we’re seeing is the truth of the fantasy, the truth of the emotion behind the fantasy, and the convincing disturbingly realistic way it’s performed creates reality out of a clear fabrication. ‘Insane’ represents the earliest time in the fictional Eminem story where we see the phantasy character ‘Slim Shady’. In real life, we know that Slim Shady was a character that Mathers invented in his early 20s, but within the world of the lyrics, we can see he was created by the child Marshall as a form of defence against his stepfather, where his ‘maniac’ behaviour keeps the abuse man at bay. In every other occasion, Slim Shady has been

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presented to us as an alter-ego of the adult Eminem or Marshall Mathers, but seeing him being ‘born’ in his childhood’ presents a number of interesting notions, not least that Slim is being used as a way to protect the vulnerable Marshall from the world, building a wall around the man whose ‘insecurities could eat [him] alive’ (Eminem 2002). Mathers has always seen rap as his escape from the difficulties of the real world describing it as ‘the place I always retreat to when things get too hectic in real time (Eminem 2009: 34), and Kauffman and Kauffman suggest that ‘symptoms of trauma are reduced by writing and having more extended writing sessions (hence more exposure) is linked to better health outcomes’ (Kaufman and Kaufman 2009: 268). In a 2021 i Newspaper article, Kais Delgado highlighted the importance of music in terms of ‘confession’ and catharsis, pointing to the frequency of songs about break-ups, mental distress or addiction as being therapeutic ‘for the songwriter or composer and also the listener who identifies with similar experiences, and so reduces feelings of social isolation.’ (Kasia Delgado (2021) i Newspaper ‘Hits of dopamine: how hearing your favourite tunes can act as therapy’ 25th June 2021, p. 40). The very notion of recording the songs can be a cathartic experience as they give the artist the opportunity to share personal experiences to ‘offload’ any trauma behind them. Marianne Horsdal says that ‘When someone is telling a story of the path she traversed, she is mentally walking over the path again, and the empathic listener is vicariously walking with her. To tell a story about a difficult path to a responsive listener may be a way to repeat the route with someone instead of walking alone.’ (Horsdal 2012: 26)

With Eminem well aware that his ‘responsive listeners’ run into the millions and many of those will be diehard fans who have followed his career from its start, it is possible that relaying stories of his past is as much for the benefit of his mental health as it is for the benefit of the songs themselves. Herman suggests that ‘Narrative […] is a basic human strategy for coming to terms with time, process, and change’ (Herman, D. 2009). Basic Elements of Narrative. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, p. 2) and Eminem has frequently used his lyrics in such a way throughout his career, using them as ways to think through, purge, or make peace with certain parts of his life, particularly his relationships with Kim, his mother, fame, and the hip-hop genre.

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As such, it appears that Eminem sometimes uses his lyrics to vent, to commit into song the kinds of conversations he wishes he could have with people (especially his mother and father) that he wouldn’t be able to do in real life, and we sometimes even hear both sides of that imagined conversation, with Eminem playing both parts. This provides him with the opportunity to work through such traumatic confrontations, and perhaps purge the emotions, without needing to have them in real life. Aristotle subscribed to this idea of such imitation as catharsis, suggesting that ‘learning can be achieved through the pleasure of imitation; thus tragedy itself can lead people to the path of philosophy by means of the ‘purgation of emotions’ (Trede and Said (2003): 81).

Freud and Eminem ‘It’s been said that Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, would have a field day dissecting my son.’ —Debbie Nelson (formerly Mathers) (Nelson 2008: 235–236)

In a short online article, Batchford (2014) puts forward the suggestion that Slim Shady, Eminem, and Marshall Mathers could be analysed in terms of Sigmund Freud’s personality theory (1923), situating Slim Shady as the Id, Eminem as the Ego, and Marshall as the superego. This is a little neat and convenient as theories go, but it’s certainly worth exploring. Freud identified the Id as ‘the primitive and instinctive component of personality that operates according to the pleasure principle’ (Sadock and Sadock 2007: 195), ‘defined as an inborn tendency…to avoid pain and seek pleasure through the discharge of tension’ (Freud 1997: 217). Freud suggested that ‘the id houses the raw biological urges (to eat, sleep, defecate, copulate, and so on) that energize human behaviour’ (Weiten and Lloyd 2006: 36). If we look at some of the utterances of ‘Slim Shady’, we can see the ‘primitive, illogical, irrational, and fantasy oriented’ (McLeod 2021) behaviours that are associated with the Id, whether it be the primitive sexual urges of wanting to ‘fuck everything that walks’ (‘My Name Is’), the illogical act of tying a rope to his penis and jumping from a free (‘Role Model’), the irrational way he justifies his actions in ‘Kim’, or the fantasy of woman eating his leg like it was an egg roll (‘As the world turns’). All

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Slim Shady is interested in is satisfying the pleasure principle, no matter how many people he offends, abuses, or injures in the process. Slim Shady, as he says again and again just doesn’t give a fuck, and it’s down to the ego, ‘that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world’ (Weiten and Lloyd 2006: 34) which is represented by the character Eminem. Freud said that ‘in relation to the id […the ego] is like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse’ (Freud 1989: 18) and that it ‘represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions’ (Freud 1989: 18). ‘In the long run, the ego wants to maximise gratification, just like it id. However, the ego engages in secondary process thinking, which is relatively rational, realistic, and oriented toward problem solving’ (Weiten and Lloyd 2006: 36). We see such behaviours evidenced in songs like ‘The Real Slim Shady’ where the ego is holding the Id in check through censoring what it really wants to say (‘Sometimes, I wanna get on TV and just let loose, but can’t…’), but we can see it most directly in ‘Dr. West (Skit)’. When Dr. West encourages Eminem to ‘take the edge off’ by having a drink, he is putting temptation Eminem’s way, offering him a way out of his suffering, which, of course, if we reformulate this ‘way out’ as a pursuit of pleasure, ties back in with the Id’s main drive of satisfying the pleasure principle. The fact that Dr. West calls Eminem ‘darling’ is worthy of note, too. The only other time he uses the word is on the Relapse bonus track ‘My darling’, which sees Eminem battling with the Slim Shady part of his brain, which says that he possesses Eminem’s soul, mind, heart, and body. If such a term as ‘darling’ has been used on only two songs in Eminem’s catalogue, it’s likely that it’s coming from the same speaker. As Slim Shady is identified in ‘My darling’ as the one who uses the word, then we can suppose that Dr. West is Slim Shady, and, perhaps more importantly that Slim Shady is functioning as the Id characteristic of Eminem’s brain, pursuing pleasure regardless of the risk to his health or sanity. When ‘Dr. West’ is saying ‘We’ll always be together, Marshall’ (Eminem 2009), it is to be taken literally: Eminem’s Id will always be with him, as a fundamental part of his psyche. To what extent this ‘voice’ can be silenced (by the ego) is another matter, but one’s Id can’t be eradicated. Slim Shady (the Id) represents the addiction, wanting to be fed, wanting alcohol and/or drugs to serve the pleasure principle. Eminem’s ego wants this too, but realises it’s not sensible as it might land him back in trouble. In ‘Hello’ after a debauched night of sex and drugs,

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the ego is still interested in protecting him and he searches round for a condom wrapper to make sure he used one. The third of Freud’s components of personality is the superego, which ‘incorporates the values and morals of society which are learned from one’s parents and others […] consists of two systems: The conscience and the ideal self’ (McLeod 2021). ‘The conscience can punish the ego through causing feelings of guilt. For example, if the ego gives in to the Id’s demands, the superego may make the person feel bad through guilt’ (McLeod 2021). ‘The ideal self is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be [… and] behaviour which falls short of the ideal self may be punished by the superego through guilt’ (Weiten and Lloyd 2006: 37). Going back to ‘Dr. West (Skit)’ the superego (which is represented by Marshall Mathers) is encouraging him to be a ‘better person’ by getting sober and attending classes. Elsewhere in his lyrics, the superego is present whenever Mathers doesn’t live up to what he sees as his ‘ideal self’. Such feelings of guilt are usually experienced in relation to Hailie and how he isn’t able to be present in her life as much as he wants (see ‘Rock Bottom’, ‘When I’m Gone’, and ‘Castle’ for a few examples) but can also be seen in the songs ‘Like Toy Soldiers’ where he expresses regret at how the lifestyle he’s a part of can lead to violence, and ‘Stepping Stone’ where he apologises to his former D12 band mates for using them, as the title suggests, as his stepping stone. In both these last two examples, Mathers’s superego is punishing his Id for pursuing its wants and desires despite the cost to others. ‘The super-ego is […] not simply a residue of the earliest object-choices of the id; it also represents an energetic reaction-formation against those choices. Its relation to the ego is not exhausted by the precept: ‘You ought to be like this (like your father).’ It also compromises the prohibition: ‘You may not be like this (like your father)—that is, you may not do all that he does; some things are his prerogative.’ This double aspect of the ego ideal derives from the fact that the ego ideal had the task of repressing the Oedipus complex; indeed, it is that revolutionary event that it owes its existence’ (Freud 1986: 457–458). Freud saw the conflict of self as ‘essentially a battle between the super-­ ego (‘the parent’) and the id (‘the child); the rational, intelligent, ordered side versus the irrational, animal libidinous one’ (Yorke 2014: 130–131). The song ‘My Darling’, a largely ignored ‘digital bonus track’ on the Relapse album is the best example of this battle between Id and Superego, with a direct struggle between the two shown via a dialogue between Slim

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Shady and Marshall. In the song, Slim suggests that Marshall ‘sold his soul’ to him to succeed in hip-hop, which suggests that Marshall fully succumbed to his Id to get what he wanted. The song does deviate from the neat and tidy Batchford theory we began this section with, though (Slim = Id, Eminem = Ego, Marshall = Superego) as here it’s Slim that’s functioning as the superego, making Marshall feel guilty and telling him that fame came at a price, reminding him that he’s fallen short of his ideal self and making him doubt whether his children even like him. As I suggested earlier in this chapter, Slim, Eminem, and Marshall are all constructs from the brain of the songwriter Marshall Mathers but the lines between them aren’t clear cut. As it is, then, we can have songs where Slim is functioning as the Id, all animal urges and devil may care attitude, and also songs where he functions as the superego, initiating feelings of guilt and inadequacy. In ‘Bad Influence’ Eminem raps ‘I got one little girl, and Hailey Jade is Shady’s business’ (1999), presumably using the word ‘Shady’ as a substitute for ‘me’, which further emphasises he considers them one and the same.

Eminem and the Dream State A great deal of Relapse involves the technique of blending truth with fiction. Although a New  York Times review says that Eminem ‘is self-­ consciously autobiographical when he rhymes about himself, sometimes painfully frank, sometimes self-mocking’ (Pareles 2009), it seems to miss the points where the album includes many of Eminem’s most far-fetched fictional narratives. The albums starts with ‘Dr West (Skit)’ which refers to Eminem’s much publicised (real-life) battle with drugs and subsequent stint in rehab. In this Skit, Eminem speaks with ‘Dr West’ in his office about his concerns that he might relapse, before descending into a disturbing scene where Dr West encourages Eminem to abandon his sobriety (acting in the ‘temptation’ role that Eminem himself played in ‘Guilty Conscience’) before we realise the whole scene was a nightmare, with Eminem waking up on the next track at ‘3 am’, where ‘there is no escaping’ (Eminem 2009) from the nightmare of what his life has become. This serves as an indicator of the how the rest of the album will progress, as we are never quite sure what is a nightmare and what is real life; what is fiction and what is truth. The flitting from scene to scene nature of ‘Bagpipes from Baghdad’ mirrors the randomness of the dream state, starting off in Mariah Carey’s wine cellar before spiralling off into fantasies about serial

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killers, horror movie villains, and a bizarre sequence where he separates then reattaches conjoined twins. Blechner identifies the dream state as a place where we ‘pull together all that we know and all that we have experienced, and then we create new experiences’ (Blechner 2013: 3) and the bizarre and confused situations Eminem finds himself in (and participates in) certainly suggest this is happening. Blechner also suggests that moving quickly on from a scene in a dream could be due to the dreamer not wanting to deal any further with the issue(s), or to defuse a confrontation (Blechner 2013: 25), so such dreams in Relapse could actually be quite instructive in terms of Eminem’s unconscious state of mind. The ‘is this a dream or is this reality’ narratives share similarities with a number of horror films, including the 1968 Ingmar Bergman film Hour of the Wolf where the viewer is caught between thinking ‘are we watching what really happened, or are we seeing the imagined fantasies of disturbed individuals?’ (Film Sufi 2017).

Eminem and the Second Self Carl Jung’s philosophy […] is built on a similar duality [as Freud’s, believing] that every psychological power had its opposing force, whether it was ying and yang, anima and animus or, most pertinently, between the persona (the façade one shows to the world) and its shadow (the unconscious urge that lies beneath)’ (Yorke 2014: 130–131). For Jung, in order for happiness to be achieved ‘the persona must encounter and integrate the shadow’ (Yorke 2014: 132). It might be more applicable to the Slim Shady/ Marshall dynamic, then, to look at them in terms of the persona and its shadow (or second) self. Even without analysing which lyrics can be attached to Slim and which to Marshall, the notion of a duality, or doubling effect, is evident throughout Eminem’s career, whether that’s through the double-tracking of vocals (which is a technique often used on the sections he sings) or the interjections that are made via a second vocal overdubbed behind the main vocal track, which we see from ‘My Name Is’ all the way through to ‘These Demons’ on Music To Be Murdered By Side B. Such interjections often involve a second opinion or perspective to either compliment or juxtapose the first and differ from ‘call and response’ type dialogues, like in ‘Guilty Conscience’ where ‘two different voices are trading the dominant, commanding place’ in the narrative (Connor 2018: 123). Sometimes, in a song like ‘My Name Is’ the second voice involves Eminem impersonating

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other people, filling in their reactions to his main vocal utterances (impressions include his mother, his English teacher, an autograph hunter, a cuckolded boyfriend, and a group of violence-loving children). In other songs, however the second voice functions almost like how an internal voice functions after we say something out loud, adding to or critiquing the original utterance. We see this most obviously in ‘Just Don’t Give a Fuck’ where the second voice (seen in the refrain) is so high up in the mix that it commands place in the way both voices in ‘Guilty Conscience’ do, but it still functions as the second voice as it overlaps the first at times, almost suggesting that the thought of ‘I just don’t give a fuck’ is so desperate to reveal itself that it can barely wait to hear exactly what isn’t being given a fuck about. Other smaller interjections occur in the songs ‘Drug Ballad’ (where the second voice calls Mark Wahlberg a ‘fuckin’ faggot’ ((2000)))’, and ‘Role Model’ (where it calls Hilary Clinton a ‘bitch’ and says ‘Fuck you’ to Vanilla Ice’. In such instances, the second voice is very much functioning as the Id, saying exactly what it wants to say without worrying about the impact of its words. On occasion the second voice emerges to interact with the first, like in ‘Insane’ where it asks ‘Shady what the fuck you saying!? (2009), but most of the time is to be found in the background, limited to occasional interjections, as if such thoughts could be contained no longer (by the protective ego). In A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance Leon Festinger described the titular notion as people having ‘cognitions and behaviours that are inconsistent […] or dissonant’ (O’Connor and Morvan 2017: 9) and pointing to smoking as a ‘dissonant’ behaviour, as ‘a person may know that smoking is bad for them yet continue to smoke’ (O’Connor and Morvan 2017: 9). ‘In the event of a conflict arising between one’s attitudes, a change is effected so as to get rid of the dissonance’ (O’Connor and Morvan 2017: 10). ‘Say you may be a devil may care person […] but the fact you are married and have two small children to take care of may […make you want to] desist from taking risks. Though you may want to follow your heart and undertake adventurous activities, you will decide to forego your desire in light of your decision to be a supportive father […] You will therefore go ahead and change your attitude to be more commensurate without your behavior’ (O’Connor and Morvan 2017: 10). Take Eminem. He is a man in his mid-twenties who is given the opportunity to live out his dreams and go to Los Angeles to record an album

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with his hero Dr. Dre. But… he is also a father who takes his responsibilities extremely seriously and is determined not to have the kind of fatherless childhood he himself had. And here we are faced with cognitive dissonance: on one hand he wants to live the kind of reckless and decadent lifestyle synonymous with hip-hop (and the wealth it brings), and on the other, he needs to be a grounded and responsible parent. Mathers’ mother describes her son as ‘a mass of contradictions—he’s shy, suffers terrible stage fright yet tours constantly and is among the most instantly recognisable people in the world’ (Nelson 2008: 235–236) and Eminem explores this on the song ‘So Far…’ where he outlines the contradictions in his life.

Eminem the Killer Eminem’s behaviour also ties in with ‘Victorian middle-class ideology, in which an outside (public)/ inside (private) dichotomy worked to balance marketplace aggression (outside), and a soothing, pacific domesticity (inside) (Jones 2017: 13). We can see Eminem’s awareness of this in ‘Hailie’s Song’ where he details what he thinks his public persona is, but then proceeds to be ‘perfectly honest’ about how this doesn’t show his real side: his role as a father in the domestic setting. And yet Eminem has also gone to great length to perpetuate this other role as a foul-mouthed, violent, virile rapper. The notion of duality, or doubling was a common theme in the Gothic fiction of the Victorian era, most noticeably in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde where Stevenson creates a story in which Jekyllian respectability and Hydean corruption exist simultaneously in one and the same body…’ (Middleton 1999: XII). Such is the widespread knowledge of the ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ character that it has become a shortcut to describing a split personality, a good side vs bad side; moral vs immoral. Eminem himself even uses the reference in the three separate tracks ‘Stronger Than I Was’, ‘Low, Down, Dirty’ and ‘Sway In The Morning (Freestyle)’, but, more importantly plays out the two roles indirectly on a number of occasions, often within the same song. We see it, for example, in ‘Kim’ where Eminem flits from doting father to violent monster within the space of a second, ‘Kill You’ where he shifts from profuse swearing and violent imagery to ‘you know I’m only playing, ladies’ (Eminem 2000g), and ‘I’m Shady’ where a sentence about liking ‘happy things’ like ‘birds, bees […and] people’ is followed by a sentence describing an act of child sex abuse. Such a duality is shown visually in the video for ‘3am’ Waking up in the middle of the woods, disorientated and clearly unaware how he got

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there, the video sees Eminem thinking back to the night before, where he appears to have broken into a hospital medicine repository, taken fistfuls of pills, then murdered a nurse. At various points in the video we see Eminem ‘the murderer’ in close-up where his eyes are washed out in one solid light blue colour, no pupils or iris visible. This is reminiscent of the scenes in the last episode of Series two of the TV Series Twin Peaks, where we see the same effect used on the Doppleganger of Special Agent Dale Cooper (known as ‘bad’ Dale Cooper and representing his ‘dark side’.) The ‘3am’ video veers between suggesting Eminem did commit the murders depicted in the video (and the lyrics), showing a gash on his hand which his memory tells him is from slicing a knife into his own hand before or after killing the nurse, but also suggesting the whole thing is in his imagination via supernatural images such as blood dripping up the hospital walls of its own accord. In another clip, we see a close-up of Eminem’s wrist, where he wears a hospital identity bracelet, which could either suggest he was in the hospital and committed the murders while there, or he was in the hospital due to poor mental health which has led to him imagining he committed such acts. In an interview on German MTV in 2009 when talking about ‘3 AM’, Eminem says that to write the song he ‘had to go into the mindset of a serial killer.’ He then says this was ‘easy’ for him, before staring at the interviewer for a few awkward seconds, then saying to them ‘I’m looking at you right now and thinking of ways to kill you’ (MTV Germany 2009). One of Eminem’s awkward ‘jokes’, of course, but Eminem’s penchant of referencing serial killers is neither confined to that song nor that interview, and he mentions the terms in eight songs as well as specifically naming the serial killers Jeffrey Dahmer (on ten occasions), ‘Jack The Ripper’ (four), Richard Ramirez, John Wayne Gacy, as well as fiction killers Dexter, Norman Bates (5 times), Hannibal Lecter (9 times), Jason Vorhees (14 times), Michael Myers (3 times), and a reference to the film ‘American Psycho’, In an interview with Anthony Bozza after the release of Relapse Eminem said about serial killers: ‘I always had a thing for them. Oh, that’s not twisted in itself at all, right? I’ve always been intrigued by them and watching movies like that, and I found that going back through my DVD collection and watching movies about killers sparked something in me. The way a serial killer’s mind works, just the psychology of them, is pretty fucking crazy. I was definitely inspired by that…’ (Bozza 2009). Simpson suggests that ‘The serial killer’s […popularity] is an uneasy expression of a superficially apolitical craving for the simple reassurances of seamless and

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universal myths to mitigate the endless paradoxes and struggles of the present moment’ (Simpson 2000: 16). Eminem’s foray back into the serial killer narratives may then be him finding safety and familiarity in such imagery, using it to help him overcome the confusion of his real life. As Hobbs says about ‘Same Song and Dance’: ‘by embodying such a ludicrous pastiche of a serial killer, Em enjoyed a much-needed dose of escapism at a time where his private life was starting to unravel’ (Hobbs 2020). Slim Shady, the deliverer of such images, is similarly used as a crutch as Eminem uses the fictional character as a way to turn his back on the real world. The concept of the serial killer might also be used more as a metaphor in Eminem’s lyrics, and may serve ‘as the engine that drives our attraction/ repulsion toward an elemental existence where one may be free of civilization and its discontents’ (Simpson 2000: 5) and symbolize ‘a literalization of the devoured/ devouring world motif in carnivalesque folk culture’ (Simpson 2000: 15). I won’t spend too much time on the notion of Eminem and the Carnivalesque here, not least because James Keller covers it in such detail in his 2007 essay in The Americanist journal ‘The Lord of Misrule: Eminem and the Rabelaisian Carnival’ but some aspects are certainly worth focusing on with regard to Eminem’s role as this ‘Lord of Misrule’, a phrase originally attached to ‘the carnival king of the medieval festivities [who] was a person of low birth, uplifted to the role of master of revels [….someone who] rose briefly from the status of clown to that of a monarch’ (Keller 2007: 114). The ‘trickster’ character archetype ‘embodies the energies of mischief and desire for change […;] they cut big egos down to size, and bring heroes and audiences down to earth’ (Vogler 2007: 77) and no famous icon, celebrity, or family member is safe from Eminem, even Dre. Dre whose ‘angel on the shoulder’ character Eminem brings down to size in ‘Guilty Conscience’ by bringing up a real-life ‘incident in which Dre attacked’ (Guardian Music 2015) journalist Dee Barnes. In this role, Eminem is thus able to ‘flout and mock authority’ (Keller 2007: 112) despite being someone from a social class whose voices and energies are normally silenced (Robinson 2011). Such a notion isn’t an original one, of course, and ‘…there is a direct line of cultural continuity that runs from the shocking, outrageous lyrics, practices, and lifestyles of Sid Vicious and Alice Cooper to current incarnations in Marilyn Manson, Eminem [himself], and Slipknot […where] the common theme is valorization of the grotesque and inversions of dominant norms’ (Applebaum and Robinson 2005: 277) but the simple fact of hip-­ hop, via Eminem, now reaching such a huge audience (that includes white people too) is in itself an overturning of the ‘dominant norm’.

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Eminem and the Hero As a character Eminem identifies himself with the classic masculine hero who shows ‘such obvious manly qualities as outstanding physical and mental strength and stamina […] a backbone and vigour…’ (Booker 2004: 260–261). Not only does Eminem have to be physically strong, but he has to be able to withstand great mental pressure and overcome adversity to prevail and be the hero of his own story. Within this struggle is the battle with his dark side, sometimes symbolised as Slim Shady, sometimes with his struggles with alcohol and drugs, sometimes via his issues with morality, guilty, and remorse (seen at varying times applied to Kim, his mother, D12, and Hailie). Inside Eminem’s story, we have plenty of ‘bad’ characters (Slim Shady, Kim, his mother, his father) but only one truly good character: Hailie. Hailie represents the ‘light feminine’ (Booker 2004: 556) within Eminem’s lyrical journey, providing him with ‘the life-­ giving balance which alone can provide a living connection with other people and with the reality of the world outside’ (Booker 2004: 556). Without Hailie’s light feminine, Eminem would remain cut off, his unchecked masculine consciousness remaining unchecked and becoming deadly. As a ‘hero’ character, then, Eminem is reliant on Hailie to keep him grounded and human, and she appears regularly as a recurring character throughout his career, not to the extent that she’s ‘80 percent’ what he writes about, as he asserts in ‘In my Head’, but mentioned in 48 songs. Vogler says that ‘Heroes have qualities that we can all identify with and recognize in ourselves. They are propelled by universal drives that we can all understand: the desire to be loved and understood, to succeed, survive, be free, get revenge, right wrongs, or seek self-expression’ (Vogler 2007: 30). We can attach each of these attributes to Eminem in his lyrics: the desire to be loved (‘Stronger Than I Was’ and understood (‘Hailie’s Song’); to succeed (either as an artist in ‘Mockingbird’, in providing money for his family in ‘Rock Bottom’, or as a father in ‘Cleanin’ Out My Closet’); to survive (In ‘Déjà Vu’); be free (from addiction in ‘Zeus’), right wrongs (making peace with his mother in ‘Headlights’ and Kim in ‘Bad Husband’), and seeking self-expression (speaking out against censorship in ‘Sing For the Moment’). Eminem’s lyrics also position him as a hero in his own rags to riches story. Booker says that when we first meet the hero of such a story, ‘we see them in the situation in which we all begin our lives, overshadowed by the presence of parents and everyone around us. But the vital quality they must be shown as possessing, in contrast to the dark figures around them, is that they are essentially good-hearted, because this shows they are not egocentric. They are in tune with their

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deeper, selfless instincts…’ (Booker 2004: 564). Seeing Eminem in this light may seem strange, seeing as he goes to great lengths to shock, upset, and disgust his audience, but these qualities are there, and Eminem goes to equally great lengths to ensure they’re present on every album, from Infinite’s ‘It’s OK’ (where he talks about his desire to provide a good life for Kim and Hailie) through to the vulnerability and soul-bearing he shows on Music to be Murdered by’s ‘Never Love Again’. Eminem and the Superhero Eminem frequently names superheroes in his songs, dresses up as them in his videos, and seems to identify with them in his lyrics. It’s the superhero’s flaws that seem to appeal to Eminem, and how many of them are both idolised and hated in their fictional worlds, just as he is in his world. His obsession with Christopher Reeve, culminating in Paul Rosenberg saying on Relapse’s ‘Paul (Skit)’: ‘I mean with this Christopher Reeves shit? / You know the guy’s dead, right?’ (2009) is Eminem seeing the real-life demise of a superhero, with his childhood hero consigned to life in a wheelchair following his tragic horse-jumping accident in 1995. In Reeve, Eminem sees how easy it is to go from superhero to someone no longer even capable of walking, let alone doing elaborate film stunts. Superheroes such as X-Men, Spiderman, and Batman are often ‘outcasts, loners, and outlaws’, identified as ‘heroes’ because of ‘their “awesome” powers and resources, their unblinkered, realistic view of existence, and their willingness to “try to do the right thing” despite doubts about the efficacy of their actions’ (Kendrick 2010: 185) and Eminem frequently positions himself as the underdog, therefore, both in general life, where he considers himself an outcast of society, but also in the hip hop world, where despite his unprecedented success he still feels a desperate need to prove his relevance and currency to fans, critics, and fellow artists. By positioning himself as the outcast, Eminem is able to present himself as both underdog and superhero, someone who puts freedom of speech as his number one aim ‘to do the right thing’, despite the inevitable criticism it will bring. Eminem and the Byronic Hero Eminem’s frequent rejection of social morals and standards and his glee in defying authority, particularly in his guise as Slim Shady, position him as a Byronic hero. Going beyond the classic masculine hero attributes discussed earlier, the Byronic hero is defined as ‘violent, dominating… and

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heterosexually virile’ (Jones 2017: 11) and we see all of these behaviors frequently exhibited by Eminem. In the song ‘Superman’ alone, Eminem stands aloof in the face of being seduced by women, showing his sexual virility through the line ‘bitches, they come they go/ Saturday through Sunday, Monday/ Monday through Sunday, yo’ (Eminem 2002), his violence in threatening to ‘slap’ women off barstools or to present them with ‘Anthrax on a Tampax’ (Eminem 2002), and domination with his compete control (and apparent contempt) over the women chasing him. Eminem’s frequent rejection of the label of ‘role model’ and the notion of being responsible for the negative impact his lyrics have on fan satisfies the Byronesque trope of refusing to be seen as ‘role models, leaders, or guides…’ (Marin 2008: 81). Later in his career, though, Eminem has acknowledged his position as a leader, and his more political songs (more on this in the next chapter) seek to situate him as a spokesperson for specific causes, something which directly contradicts the idea of the Byronic hero but does further reinforce our idea of Eminem as a mass of contradictions.

Distance Between Character and Author ‘In 1912 Edward Bullough formulated the problem of what he called “psychic distance” as that of making sure that a work is neither “over-­ distanced” nor “under-distanced.” If it is over-distanced, it will seem, he said, improbable, artificial, empty, or absurd, and we will not respond to it. Yet if it is “under-distanced,” the work becomes too personal and cannot be enjoyed as art’ (Booth 1961: 122). Burroway (2007: 48) sets out a series of questions to determine the degree of distance between the author-and-reader and the character. • Who speaks? • To whom? (the reader? another character? the self?) • In what form? (a story? a journal? a report? a daydream?) • At what distance? (an old man telling the story of his youth? a prisoner recounting his crime?) • And with what limitations? (is the narrator a liar, a child, crazy?) (Burroway 2007: 48). If we look at these in relation to one of Eminem’s seemingly most autobiographical songs, ‘Cleanin’ out My Closet’, we find the following: • Who speaks?

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Before the actual narrative of the song starts, we have a ‘fly on the wall’ moment, where Eminem, in the vocal booth, is speaking to Dr. Dre about having no snare in his headphones. That this has been included in the song is an artistic decision, but the actual utterance is free from artifice and allows us, albeit briefly, to hear Marshall Mathers the rapper/ entertainer going about his business. In a paradoxical way, this drawing attention to the manufactured construct of music (saying this has been created thousands of mils away in a studio) serves to make it seem real. After this, Mathers begins the narrative, a constructed, edited, and artificial construct where his own voice is swallowed by the persona he wants to put across on record (dictated by meter, rhyme, image etc.) In this way, then, two voice are heard: Marshall Mathers as himself, and Marshall Mathers as Eminem. • To whom? (the reader? another character? the self?) The song’s narrative begins with in first person direct, by posing a question to an unnamed ‘you’, presumed to be the generic listener, before switching to first person indirect (‘Mama’) in the two lines preceding the chorus, and the chorus itself. The rest of the song follows a similar pattern, flitting between these direct and indirect utterances. • In what form? (a story? a journal? a report? a daydream?) Eminem shows awareness of the form he’s writing in by drawing attention to the album title (‘I’d like to welcome y’all to “The Eminem Show”’ (2002), and by saying ‘one more time’ in the final two choruses. The narrative runs like an outpouring of grief and anger, though, a getting something off one’s chest, suggested by the no-linear narrative, as if Eminem’s troubled mind is flitting from one damaging incident/ thought to the next. • At what distance? (an old man telling the story of his youth? a prisoner recounting his crime?) The lyrics start off in past tense, with Eminem looking back at his (recent) past, before switching to present tense when he switches to indirect address. The chorus then remains in present tense, and verse two starts off that way, before Eminem takes us ‘back to ‘73’ to briefly tell the story of how his father abandoned him, before switching to future projection with regard to his own child (‘I look at Hailie, and I couldn’t picture leaving her side/ Even if I hated Kim, I’d grit my teeth and I’d try’) (2002). The rest of the song continues mixing past, present, and future

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projection as Eminem flits between what is happening now, what happened in his childhood, and what he imagines the future to hold with regard to his relationship with his mother. • And with what limitations? (is the narrator a liar, a child, crazy?). Eminem is angry: this is apparent from both his language (‘You selfish bitch; I hope you fucking burn in hell for this shit’) and the way in which he delivers his lines. Such heightened emotions would suggest an unreliability, so from this we might gauge Eminem to be an unrealiable narrator, not to mention, of course, that ‘…we must assume that there is an identifiable distinction between real events and their narrative representations’ (Görey 2017: 6). Now the same set of questions for one of Eminem’s more character-­ driven songs ‘Stan’: • Who speaks? This is the biggest question of the whole song, and the first voice we hear, that of the singer Dido’s, is the most complicated to attach to anyone. Whose voice is this? This can be answered in three different ways, and each answer is dependent on how we’re ‘consuming’ the song, and whether such an analysis should include the music video. Music and music video are now so interlinked that it’s often hard to imagine one without the other, and this was evidenced in 2018 when it was announced that Youtube views would count towards the UK singles chart (Official Charts Company 2018). ‘So ingrained is the music video into popular culture that there have been numerous instances where a video has either led to the success of a song, or become MORE successful. So, any time we conduct a full in-depth analysis into a song, and it HAS a music video (this would include pretty much every ‘single’ released today) we must include the music video in this analysis, as, once it is made, it is as inseparable from the overall music package as lyrics are from melody, and melody is from production. (Fosbraey and Melrose: 69). And although some listeners (and even some artists) don’t pay much attention to lyrical content, they are still being exposed to it when they listen to a song, or view the music video, meaning that the words are having an impact, whether we like to admit it or not. Music videos also allow us to bring in extra narratives or discussion points which may not be overly evident (or even present) in the songs themselves. In the case of ‘Stan’, the music video attaches Dido’s sections firmly to Stan’s girlfriend, played in the video by Dido herself. In the long version of the music video, there is a 1  minute 20  seconds of film before the music starts, and this serves as a

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contextualisation for Dido’s lyrics that aren’t present when just listening to the song. In this opening section of the music video, we see Stan’s heavily pregnant girlfriend waking up alone in bed. She gets up and goes to the bathroom, where she finds a very angry Stan in the process of bleaching his hair. In the lines ‘Stanley, what are you doing to yourself?’, and ‘Don’t you think you’re taking this too far?’ the girlfriend character suggests that she’s not comfortable with Stanley’s behaviour. The song itself starts as Stan storms out of the room, leaving the girlfriend alone. The lyrics of Dido’s sections are now attached firmly to the girlfriend’s character (and are literally coming out of her mouth as she sings them), and these lines ‘…I’m wondering why I got out of bed at all/ The morning rain clouds up my window’ (2000) sum up what we have just seen: a woman who is struggling with her life and is depressed by her current situation. However, the lines ‘Put your picture on my wall/ It reminds me, that it’s not so bad’ don’t fit with what we’ve seen and can’t really be attached to the girlfriend. When the chorus repeats, though, the camera moves down from the bathroom and we see Stan waking down into a basement whose walls are covered in pictures of Eminem. When we hear these lines again, therefore, they now become Stan’s, reemphasised by the camera focusing in on said pictures at the line ‘pictures on my wall.’ If we look only at the song, and ignore the music video, the girlfriend isn’t given a voice at all, and we are more inclined simply to attach Dido’s voice straight to Stan, who we find out is struggling with mental illness ‘so that shit helps when I’m depressed’ (giving context to the lines ‘…I’m wondering why I got out of bed at all’ and ‘…it’ll all be gray’ with such hopeless thoughts being symptomatic of depression), and, of course, says ‘I got a room full of your posters and your pictures man’ thus linking to ‘Put your picture on my wall’, and the line ‘So when I have a shitty day, I drift away and put ‘em on’ linking with ‘It reminds me, that it’s not so bad.’ The confusion comes when we look at the song as a whole, then revisit the start again. Doing this, we see that the whole song is in Eminem’s voice, as he is reading Stan’s letters aloud (and listening to his cassette) then responding to them. The desperation in the first lines of Dido’s sections, then, would fit Eminem’s mood at the end of the song during his own letter, despondent with the fact his fans are so demanding and unreasonable and he is abused despite doing his best to reply and do right by them. With regard to the ‘picture on my wall’ line, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for us to bring Eminem’s daughter Hailie into this analysis as the one who reminds him that it’s not so bad. We’d need to ignore the music video with this reading, of course, for we clearly see one of the letters being dropped from the mail cart so not reaching Eminem.

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So, depending on how we want to read the lyrics, and whether or not we want to include the music video in our analyses, we have 3 options as to who is speaking. (1) Stan’s girlfriend, Stan, and Eminem, (2) Stan and Eminem, or (3) Eminem (using Dido to speak for him in an act of ventriloquism—more on this later). • To whom? The answer to the first question will determine our response to this, so we should use our three different options. 1. Stan’s girlfriend, Stan, and Eminem are speaking: Stan’s girlfriend is talking to herself and Stan; Stan is talking to Eminem; Eminem is talking to Stan 2. Stan and Eminem: Stan is talking to Eminem; Eminem is talking to Stan 3. Eminem: Eminem is talking to himself (reading the letters aloud), then to Stan. • In what form? Depending on how we read the song, it is either in a quasi-epistolary format, with Stan’s letters and cassette, and Eminem’s own letter forming the basis of the song, OR in basic lyric format, with Eminem as the narrator. • At what distance? In his first letter (that we see), Stan refers to sending two letters ‘back’ in Autumn, suggesting we’re now in winter. His reference in his last missive to it being ‘six months’ without a word from Eminem suggests that 6 months has passed since the sending of the first letter in Autumn, and the recording of his cassette (presumably in Spring/ early summer). In his response letter, Eminem refers to the hearing about the crash on the news a couple of weeks previous, suggesting that the time period from first letter (Stan) to last (Eminem) is a few months. • And with what limitations? Each of our narrators has the potential to be unreliable.

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References Sources Applebaum, R. P. & Robinson, W.I. (eds). (2005). Critical Globalization Studies. United Kingdom: Routledge. Bodden, V. (2009). Creating the Character: Dialogue and Characterization. Minnesota: Creative Education. Batchford, J. (2014). ‘Eminem’s Ego  – Freud Asks ‘Will The Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up?” http://www.lyricloungereview.co.uk/eminems-­ego-­freud-­ asks-­will-­the-­real-­slim-­shady-­please-­stand-­up/ (accessed 13 July 2021). Bell, J. 2004. Plot & Structure. London: Penguin Random House. Bennett, Andy, Shank, Barry, and Toynbee, Jason (eds.) (2006). The Popular Music Studies Reader. London: Routledge. Blechner, M. J. (2013). The Dream Frontier. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. Bowes, P. (2001). ‘Eminem’s criminal record’. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ entertainment/1271224.stm (accessed 16 September 2021). Booker, Christopher. (2004). The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. London: Continuum. Booth, W.C. (1961). The Rhetoric of Fiction. London: The University of Chicago Press. Bozza, A. (2004). Whatever you say I am. London: Corgi. Bozza, A. (2009) ‘Being Eminem’. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/ may/17/eminem-urban-music-relapse (accessed 20 July 2022). Bradley, A. & DuBois, A. (eds.). 2010. The Anthology of Rap. New Haven: Yale University Press. Bozza, Anthony. 1999. Eminem Blows Up. https://www.rollingstone.com/ music/music-­news/eminem-­blows-­up-­91979/ (accessed 10 July 2021). Bradley, A. (2009). Book of Rhymes. New York: BasicCivitas. Bronfen, E. (1998). The Knotted Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Burroway, J. (2007). Imaginative writing: the elements of craft  – 2nd Edition. New York: Pearson/Longman. Card, O. S. (1999) Characters and Viewpoint. Ohio: F&W Publications. Connor, M. E. (2018). The Musical Artistry of Rap. United States: McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers. Costello, E. (2015). Unfaithful music & disappearing ink. London: Penguin. Dimery, R (ed.) (2005). 1001 Albums you must hear before you die. London: Cassell Illustrated. Elbow, P. (1988) Writing with Power. 2nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eminem, (1999a). ‘My Name Is. In: The Slim Shady LP [CD]. Interscope; Aftermath. Eminem, (2000g). ‘Marshall Mathers’. In: The Marshall Mathers LP [CD]. Interscope; Aftermath. Eminem, (2009i). ‘Must be the Ganja.’ In: Relapse [CD]. Aftermath; Interscope; Shady.

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Eminem (2013a). ‘Evil Twin’. In: The Marshall Mathers LP 2 [CD]. Aftermath; Interscope; Shady. Eminem (2017a). ‘River’ In: Revival [CD]. Aftermath; Interscope; Shady. Eminem, (2020a). ‘Darkness’. In: Music to be murdered by [CD]. Aftermath; Interscope; Shady. Eminem with Sasha Jenkins (2009). The Way I am. New York: Plume Books. Erll, A., Grabes, H., Nünning, A. (eds) (2008). Ethics in Culture: The Dissemination of Values through Literature and Other Media. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Film Sufi (2017). ‘“Hour of the Wolf” – Ingmar Bergman (1968)’. http://www. filmsufi.com/2017/01/hour-­of-­wolf-­ingmar-­bergman-­1968.html (accessed 23 September 2021). Fiori, U. (2000). ‘Peter Gabriel’s ‘I have the touch’. In: Middleton, R. (ed.) (2000). Reading Pop. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fletcher, J. (2013). Freud and the scene of trauma. New  York: Fordham University Press. Fosbraey, G. (2015). ‘Disrupting Status Quo’ In CREATIVE ACADEMIC MAGAZINE Issue 2 June 2015. http://www.creativeacademic.uk/ uploads/1/3/5/4/13542890/cam_2a.pdf (accessed 11 July 2021). Fosbraey, G. (2018). ‘Living inside and outside songs’. https://www.axonjournal. com.au/issue-­c2/living-­inside-­and-­outside-­songs (accessed 16 September 2021). Fosbraey, G. & Melrose, A. (2018). Writing Song Lyrics: A Creative and Critical Approach. United Kingdom: Red Globe Press. Fox News (2015). Eminem’s Biography. https://www.foxnews.com/story/ eminems-­biography (accessed 31st August 2020). Freud, S. (1986). The Essentials of Psycho-Analysis. London: Vintage. Freud, S. (1989). The Ego and the Id. (New York: W.W. Norton). Freud, S. (1997). Writings on Arts and Literature. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (2009). ‘Eminem’s Philosophy on Diss-Tracks’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=bVnOGYiPj2E (accessed 7 July 2021). Genius (2016a). Eminem ‘Verified Annotation’ for ‘Shady XV’. https://genius. com/Eminem-­shadyxv-­lyrics#about (accessed 7 July 2021). Genius (2016b). Eminem ‘Verified Annotation’ for ‘Criminal’. https://genius. com/artists/Eminem (accessed 10 July 2021). Genius News (2020) ‘Tracking The Many Voices Of Eminem’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqg0j6ygT_E (accessed 7 July 2021). Görey, Özlem (2017). English Narrative Poetry: A Babel of Voices. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press. Gordon, J. (2017). ‘This Is Who Every Taylor Swift Song Is About’ https://www. spin.com/featured/taylor-­swift-­songs-­explanation-­guide/ (accessed 14 September 2021). Guardian Music (2015). ‘Women assaulted by Dr Dre respond to his apology.’ https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/aug/25/women-­assualted-­by-­ dr-­dre-­respond-­apology-­straight-­outta-­compton (accessed 27 July 2021).

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Herman, D. (2009). Basic Elements of Narrative. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Hobbs, T. (2020). ‘Eminem: his 30 greatest tracks, ranked!’ https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/feb/20/eminem-­his-­30-­greatest-­tracks-­ranked (accessed 25 July 2021). Hopps, G. (2009). Morrissey: The Pageant of His Bleeding Heart. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Academic. Horsdal, M. (2012). Telling Lives: Exploring Dimensions of narratives. Abingdon: Routledge. Keller, J.R. (2007). ‘The Lord of Misrule: Eminem and the Rabelaisian Carnival’. Americanist 24, pp. 101–116. Jones, D. M. (2017). The Byronic Hero and the Rhetoric of Masculinity in the 19th Century British Novel. United States: McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers. Kaufman, S.B. & Kaufman, J.C. (eds.) (2009). The Psychology of Creative Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kendrick, M. G. (2010). The Heroic Ideal: Western Archetypes from the Greeks to the Present. United States: McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers. Kress, N. (2005) Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint. Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books. Lal, B.V. (2001). Mr Tulsi’s Store: A Fijian Journey. Canberra: Pandanus Books. Lavin, W. (2020). ‘Royce Da 5’9”: “Eminem doesn’t just rhyme words – he’s a master”’. https://www.nme.com/music-interviews/royce-da-59-interview-lordjamar-eminem-2639098 (accessed 30th August 2020). Marin, C.G. (2008). ‘The Byronic Hero.’ Language and Literature: European Landmarks of Identity. Volume 2. 2008. Pitesti University Press. McHale, ed. (2006). Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-Century Literatures in English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. McKee, Robert. (1999). Story. London: Methuen. McLeod, S. (2021). ‘Id, Ego, and Superego’ http://www.simplypsychology.org/ psyche.html (accessed 13 July 2021). Middleton, T. (1999). ‘Introduction’. In: Stevenson, R.L. (1999). Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with The Merry Men & Other Tales and Fables. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions. MTV Germany (2009). ‘Eminem Full Interview on MTV Germany (2009, Part II)’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4mEpPPqCZE&t=77s (accessed 21 September 2021). Munro, D. (2017). ‘Autobiography and Faction.’ In Munro, D. & Corbett J. (Eds.), Bearing Witness: Essays in honour of Brij V.  Lal (pp.  247–272). Australia: ANU Press. Nelson, D. (2008). My Son Marshall, My son Eminem. London: John Blake. O’Connor, A., Morvan, C. (2017). An Analysis of Leon Festinger’s A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. United Kingdom: Macat Library. Official Charts Company (2018). ‘How the Official Charts are compiled’. https:// www.officialcharts.com/getting-into-the-charts/howthe-charts-are-compiled/ (accessed 18 July 2022). Okapi, J. (2012). A Letter to the Establishment: The Cautionary Tale of Hunter S. Thompson. Amazon.

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Pareles, J. (2009). ‘Get Clean, Come Back: Eminem’s Return’. https://www. nytimes.com/2009/05/24/arts/music/24pare.html?_r=0 (accessed August 30th 2020). Phelan, J. 2004. Living to tell about it: A Rhetoric and Ethics of Character Narration. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Rippl, G., Schweighauser, P., Kirss, T., Sutrop, M., & Steffen, T. (2013). Haunted Narratives. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Roberts, A. (2006). Science Fiction (second edition). London: Routledge. Robinson, A. (2011). ‘In Theory Bakhtin: Carnival against Capital, Carnival against Power’. https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-bakhtin-2/ (accessed 15th October 2017). Rojek, C. (2011). Pop Music, Pop Culture. Cambridge: Polity. Rosen, R. M. & Baines, V (2002). ‘I Am Whatever You Say I Am’: Satiric Program in Juvenal and Eminem. Retrieved from http://repository.upenn.edu/classics_papers/9 (accessed 10 July 2021). Sadock, B. & Sadock, V. (2007). Kaplan & Sadock’s Synopsis of Psychiatry: Behavioral Sciences/clinical psychiatry (10th edition). Philadelphia: Lipincott Williams. Selden, R. & Widdowson, P. (1993). A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory (3rd edition) Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Simpson, P.L. (2000). Psycho Paths: Tracking the Serial Killer Through Contemporary American Film and Fiction. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Spectrum News (2019). ‘Why Domestic Violence Goes Unreported So Often’. https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-­boroughs/in-­focus-­shows/2019/10/27/ why-­domestic-­violence-­goes-­unreported-­so-­often (accessed 10 July 2021). Taylor, K. (2005). ‘Truth is weirder than any fiction I’ve seen …’. ‘https://www. theguardian.com/books/2005/feb/21/huntersthompson1 (accessed 20th July 2020). Trede, M. & Said, S. (2003). A Short History of Greek Literature. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. Vogler, C. (2007). The Writer’s Journey (3rd edition). California: Michael Wiese Productions. Weiten, W. & Lloyd, M. (2006). Psychology Applied to Modern Life: Adjustment in the 21st Century – Eighth edition. Belmont: Thomson. Yorke, J. (2014). Into the Woods. London: Penguin. Zunshine, L. (2006). Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel. Ohio: Ohio State University.

CHAPTER 4

Eminem and Language

… I’m here/ White America’s mirror, so don’t feel awkward or weird/ If you stare at me and see yourself’ —Eminem—‘Asshole’

‘True artists, we have been told again and again, take no thought of their readers. They write for themselves. The true poet writes to express himself, or find himself…and let the reader be damned’ (Booth 1961: 89). An interesting notion, but this suggests that any commercially successful writers are no longer ‘artists’, for the minute a writer is aware their work is going to be sent out into the world and read or heard by people, they are no longer just writing for themselves. And for those artists who know their work is going to be received by millions of people, just as Eminem is every time he releases an album, this becomes even more the case. Booth posits that ‘every literary work of any power—whether or not its author composed it with his audience in mind—is in fact an elaborate system of controls over the reader’s involvement and detachment’ (Booth 1968: 123). That isn’t to say that such artists are diluting their work in any way, or becoming self-conscious, but if there’s a decision to be made about keeping or cutting a line, it would be natural for them to allow thoughts on how the work might be perceived by an audience to influence their decisions. Also, in order to sell work in bulk, there has to be an element of relatability to a mass audience. As Paul Weller says, ‘it’s important to be © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 G. Fosbraey, Reading Eminem, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79626-6_4

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honest and reflect how you feel but it’s also important to try and include the people that listen to your record, to make it open enough for them to go, ‘Fuck me, I felt that as well; I’m going through this…’ (Rachel 2014: 189). If Eminem is aware that he is writing lyrics that will be heard by an audience of millions, he can allow himself to consciously think about how he might write certain things in certain ways to have the biggest emotional impact, or how he can present himself in the best possible light in terms of being authentic, relatable, and honest, despite the obvious disparity in wealth between him and most of his listeners. As listeners, Eminem persuades us to feel certain things through his language, delivery, and performance, drawing upon a series of rhetorical devices. Although originally imagined by Aristotle to analyse political oration, rhetoric has been a vital way of dissecting the written word ever since and can be applied to song lyrics in the same way it can be applied to news articles, fiction, and poetry. Leith comments that ‘Rhetoric is, as simply defined as possible, the art of persuasion: the attempt by one human being to influence another in words’ (Leith 2012: 1) and a rhetorical analysis of a song can be useful in determining the impact of words rather than simply identifying certain poetic techniques. The following section will analyse Eminem’s lyrics in terms of a series of rhetorical devices, including the fundamental modes of persuasions and divisions of oratory, and will discuss authenticity, emotion, and humour, and how the sound of the songs influence our reaction to the lyrics.

Authenticity and Identity Eminem recognised that it was the Slim Shady character that led to his fame in the first place, and ‘the more foul he was the more people loved him’ (Nelson 2008: 178), so he knew playing up to this would lead to further success. Hence The Slim Shady LP following The Slim Shady EP. But in order to have a deeper connection with his listeners, his lyrics couldn’t all be filled with far-fetched, violent narratives. He couldn’t keep making tracks like ‘Role Model’ or ‘Just Don’t Give a Fuck’. There had to be enough relatable content in there too, and he had to put in scenarios that could resonate with his audience, giving them the ‘Wow—this song is talking about me!’ moments, just like he himself felt ‘as a kid’ identifying with LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys, where he felt ‘like if everybody didn’t understand their music, it didn’t matter—they were speaking to …[him]’ (Genius 2015a). Eminem recognised that ‘music seems to have the power to help teenagers deal with both [self and group identity,

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and that] a shy, awkward, lonely youngster can find solace in music… (Hodges 2011: 316), because he had that same experience himself with the artists he idolised, and therefore he had to tailor his lyrics so their content could have similarly powerful effects. So it is, then, that 25 years into his recording career Eminem is still rapping about his life pre-fame, not just because he feels the need to constantly revisit this part of his life (more on this later) but also because it contains universal themes that a wide audience can relate to. We may not have had the exact experiences Eminem says he had (and thank goodness for that), but many of us will be able to empathise with money troubles, juggling work with trying to be a good parent, trouble with our parents, feeling inferior, struggling with responsibilities and pressures etc. And even if we don’t relate to any of that, we can feel sympathy for him, not just with regard to his troubled past, but also the notion that even with his fame, wealth, and success, he can never escape the demons of his past and so is forever cast in the role of the damaged, tortured soul for whom nothing is ever enough. Aristotle identifies ‘ethos’ where ‘the speaker emphasizes the strength of his or own moral character and experience in order to establish personal credibility’ (Shabo 2010: 8) as one of the fundamental modes of persuasion. If writers want to be trusted, or appear genuine or authoritative in what they’re saying, they’ll need to put this across in the language they use instead of simply relying on the fact the listener will be aware of their biography and/ or public persona. This is perhaps most prevalent in hip-hop, which ‘is often more or less… a constant discussion of what the rapper is about to do, his credentials for doing it, ‘shout­outs’ to the crew with whom he intends to do it and ‘disses’ to members of enemy crews who propose trying to prevent him’ (Leith 2012: 86). Being seen as ‘authentic’ is essential for an artist working in the hip-hop genre, and Armstrong identifies ‘self-creation and individuality’ as a core component of this (Armstrong 2004: 336). The notion of ‘self-creation’ refers to arriving onto the hip-hop scene without financial advantages or connections (through family members, friends, etc.) A bona-fide ‘authentic’ hi-hop artist will be self-made and will have been through a number of hardships before arriving at fame and fortune. ‘The accumulation of wealth is a popular subject for hip-hop lyricists to write about, but it’s important to demonstrate or prove that they weren’t always in such a position, and that their current wealth has come via a series of adversities which they’ve had to overcome in order to become the successes they are today. Nicki Minaj, Drake, Jay Z, Rick Ross, Kendrick Lamar, Nas, and countless others all include rags to riches stories to show their authenticity, as, of course, does

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Eminem himself. On Infinite Eminem speaks about his hardships while he’s still experiencing them, which makes it an interesting album lyrically, even if it could never be described as in the same league as his major label releases. In the song ‘It’s OK’, Eminem raps that he’s ‘still struggling hard to be the man’ and how it’s been ‘rough’ (Eminem 1996a), and he includes the first of many references to him having to carry weight on his ‘shoulder blades’, but in 1996 it’s not from the pressures of having to stay at the top of his game that he will touch upon six years later in ‘Soldiers’ from The Eminem Show, or with ‘everyone’ leaning on him (‘Hailie’s song’ from the same album), or the weight of the world (‘Like Toy Soldiers’ from 2004s Encore): here, the pressure is coming from trying to make something of himself in order to provide his family with the kind of life he wants for them. We also have a desperate Eminem who is willing to ‘cancel Christmas’ in order to record the album and fire himself toward fame and fortune in the song ‘Never 2 Far’. This is the only time we can hear Eminem talking about such things in the future predictive tense, coming ‘home every single day from working double shifts’ (Eminem 1996b) in order to buy gifts for his family. Eminem biographer Anthony Bozza testifies to the lifestyle he portrays in these songs, saying that ‘prior to being ‘discovered’ by Dr. Dre, Eminem ‘was a $5.50-an-hour cook in a Detroit grill’ (Bozza 1999). As far as authenticity goes, it’s proof that Eminem lived the life he refers back to so frequently throughout his career, but the fact that such an album was recorded at a time when he was still searching for his big break gives it a desperation and urgency, much as The Beatles’ Please, Please Me was recorded in a single day and dismissed as an EMI side-project at the time, resulting in the band’s rawest and, perhaps, most authentic album (in terms of it mirroring their live act at the time). When we join Eminem again a few years later on The Slim Shady LP, his credentials for being an artist who has ‘started at the bottom’ to quote the Drake song, is already established and Eminem can therefore dedicate more time to the shock tactics and gross-out humour of Slim Shady instead of getting bogged down with having to persuade the listener of his ‘rags to riches’ credentials. Not that he doesn’t do so anyway via ‘If I had’ and ‘Rock Bottom’, whose present tense narratives about working class struggles would have fit on Infinite in terms of subject matter, if not delivery and production, which changed (and dare I say improved) drastically in the three year interval between the albums. Eminem’s desire not to be seen as a ‘sell-out’ for joining a major label is important to him as well. As Horner & Swiss say, all major label releases ‘are commercial products sold as commodities by large corporate

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conglomerates in the popular music marketplace’ (Horner and Swiss 1999: 225). How does Eminem deal with this? He tackles it, like so many things, by getting his shots in first. In ‘Paul (Skit)’ he positions himself as the rebel that ‘the man’ is trying to censor and control, with Paul Rosenberg his ‘attorney at law’ phoning him to tone down his lyrics. Eminem may be on a major label now, but he’s still not someone who can be told what to do, and he certainly isn’t someone who has ‘sold out’ because he’s saying exactly what he wants to say, whatever trouble it may land him in. He continues this kind of behaviour on The Marshall Mathers LP with ‘Steve Berman (Skit)’ which sees him being told by Berman (vice-chairman of Interscope) that the album isn’t going to be released if he’s going to be rapping about ‘homosexuals and Vicodin’ (Eminem 2000a). As the album does is released with those subjects present and accounted for, it shows that Eminem wouldn’t compromise on his lyrical content and, once again, insists on saying exactly what he wants. But, seeing as we’re hearing this track on the album, obviously it DID come out, and with the original subject material intact. This positions Eminem as our hero, uncompromising and unwilling to yield to ‘the man’, even if the whole thing serves merely as a contrived comic interlude. Even the set-up establishes this, with a very bright and breezy Eminem to Berman’s rigid and officious ‘could you come in her and have a seat, please.’ The whole thing is reminiscent of being called into a headteacher’s or manager’s office, and Berman’s lofty position at a major record label vs the working class, down to earth Eminem instantly endears Eminem to us as so many of us can empathise with such a power imbalance. The Skit is also sandwiched in between two tracks, ‘Who Knew’ and ‘The Way I am’ which see Eminem at his most forthright and determined, lambasting censorship in the former: ‘Get aware, wake up, get a sense of humor/ Quit tryin’ to censor music’ (2000) and bemoaning the fact he’s seen as controversial in the latter: ‘And all of this controversy circles me’ (2000). In its position on the album, therefore, ‘Steve Berman’ works both as a comedic, tongue-in-­cheek palate cleanser, and as a way of hammering home the fact that Eminem is the victim, persecuted on all sides just for trying to make his art, persecuted even by his management. But, as we can see from the next song, he won’t be swayed from his path of speaking his mind as ‘that’s all I can be, it’s just me’(2000). As Eminem says with regard to the album’s first (non-skit) track ‘Kill You, ‘the whole idea of [it…] was to say some of the most fucked-up shit. Just to let people know that I’m back. That I didn’t lose it. That I wasn’t compromising nothing and I didn’t change. I anything… I got worse’ (Eminem 2000: 97).

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As well as the ‘rags to riches’ story, ‘braggadocio’ is something that is ‘expected’ in male rappers (Williams 2015: 190), but Eminem’s use of it has always differed somewhat from his contemporaries and predecessors in hip-hop. When Eminem does seem like he’s building himself up too much in terms of talking about his skill as a rapper, success as an artist, or accumulation of wealth, fame, and success, he tends to self-deprecate soon after, to even things out. As he says himself: ‘I don’t ever want to be too braggadocious. If I’m going to brag, let me pull it back with lines like “school flunky, pill junkie” (Genius 2021). While many other male rappers like to talk about their sexual prowess or penis size (including Lil Wayne, 50 Cent, and Drake to name but a few), Eminem often does the opposite, saying in ‘The Kids’ that his penis ‘is the size of a peanut’, in ‘I’m Shady’ that his ‘dick’s’ ‘just itchin”, in ‘Role Model’ that he has ‘genital warts’, and in ‘The Warning’ talks about how he ‘ejaculated prematurely’. Even when he does talk about penis size in a ‘bragging’ way, it’s in a jokey, exaggerated way, e.g. on ‘Kamikaze’ where he says that his ‘dick is the hair length of Cher’ and that ‘each nut is the chair width of an Acorn stairlift’ (2018). Eminem’s self-deprecation can be seen as a way to endear himself to his audience, but it’s also a way to protect himself against criticism as it ‘makes refutation or attacks difficult’ (Dewberry and Fox 2012: 9). Ahmed says that ‘Em has always been his worst critic […] Whether it was in movies like 8 Mile or lead singles to albums, Em’s technique of taking himself to task has often worked to deflect the disparagement that can drown other rappers’ (Ahmed 2017). Morris suggests that ‘Hip-hop authenticity is realised when an artist presents as a unique individual whilst simultaneously connecting with the fundamental, shared aspects of hip-hop culture’ (Morris 2014: 28). It’s expected, therefore, that as well as being an artist in his own right, Eminem demonstrates an awareness of the history of hip-­hop culture in order to be a part of it. Much of this comes through the sound of the songs, which conform to the classic 4/4 time-signature, drums and vocals high in the mix, stripped-back instrumentation we’d expect from hip-hop (more on this later in the chapter), and he’s certainly helped in this by being his debut album being produced by Dr. Dre, someone whose production technique had already left a major imprint on the genre by the time Eminem came to record with him. Much of it also comes from the lyrics, of course, where Eminem uses words common in the genre (e.g. ‘flow’ to mean rhythm of vocal delivery, ‘dope’ to mean ‘good’, ‘spin your shit’ to mean play your records etc.), and names countless rappers (in both positive and negative ways). But we also it through his appearance. ‘Hip hop encapsulates a unique style of dress, talk, attitude and action…’ (Mesiti 1993:

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219) and Eminem’s appearance is clearly important to him as they reinforce that he is part of the ‘hip-hop lifestyle’ where stocking caps, beanie hats, pressed khakis, puffer jackets, and ‘sagged pants’ are all very much part of the aesthetic. It’s also important to him that he is classically masculine in terms of his body shape, like his idols LL Cool J and Tupac before him, and is and able to prove this with a series of shirtless images which show muscular arms, chest, and a ‘6-pack’ abdomen, with the ‘more muscular, demonstrating power and domination’ (Hill and Ramsaran 2009: 78–79). Looking beyond the obviousness of his colour, which made him stand out from most of his contemporaries when he came onto the scene, Eminem’s dress, physique and general demeanour was very much in keeping with his contemporaries. We can see a number of parallels between Eminem and Colin Harrison’s description of Tupac in his book American Culture in the 1990s as ‘bare-chested, tattooed and perfectly toned, Tupac was both […] the dysfunctional spectre of ‘thug life’; bespectacled and impeccably dressed, he was scholar or businessman’ (Harrison 2010: 87) (see, for example, Rolling Stone 1999 re the first clause and the 2003 MTV Awards re the second). With regard to fashion, Athena Mutua identifies some hip-hop ‘signifiers’ as ‘tattoos, baggy clothes, stocking caps, baseball caps, [and] jewellery’ (Mutua 2006: 201), and if we look at how Eminem presented himself to the world upon arriving on the hip-hop scene (and throughout the years beyond) we see him adhering to this as well as other popular hip-hop fashions such as ‘Sport jerseys […] and sports team hats’ (Goldsmith and Fonseca 2019: 237). Keyes also suggests that ‘the MC’s use of street speech […] and body gestures authenticates his or her association with a street aesthetic’ (Keyes 2004: 124), and Eminem’s frequent ‘crotch-grabbing’ on stage and in his music videos alludes to a ‘protogangsta’ (Norris 1996: 49) move adopted by many of his predecessors and originating in breakdancing (Rajakumar 2012: xx), and his frequent use of swear words and slang remain true to his formative years in Detroit. The white ‘tank top’ (or ‘vest’ as it’s known here in the UK), ‘worn by the majority of men in the hip hop world’ (Steinberg et al. 2010: 347) has also been central to Eminem’s image and has been a fixture throughout his career, outlasting his bleached blond hair. He debuts the look on the video for his debut single ‘Just don’t give a fuck’, continues it in the videos for ‘Role Model’, ‘The Real Slim Shady’, ‘The Way I am’, ‘Cleanin’ out my closet’, ‘Love the Way you Lie’, and ‘The Monster’. The look is also found in his album art on The Marshall Mathers LP which has two full-­ page black and white images of him in this get-up, and a smaller colour one. In all these images, it is obvious he has a muscular physique, with

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biceps clearly on show. Perhaps just as importantly, though, the images show Eminem writing, therefore the photographs aren’t staged in the way a male model’s would be. His physique is displayed to us ‘naturally’, without it seeming as though Eminem is a poser or in some way artificial. The same look is revisited in a full-page colour photograph in the Relapse album booklet, but once again Eminem isn’t posing in any way seductively: here he holds a knife in one hand, which ‘naturally’ necessitates his arms to come across his body to give the full impact of his biceps. Finally, the back cover of Revival’s booklet sees Eminem in the vest again, his arms positioned to give maximum expose to the biceps, but once again, not in a posed way. The vest/ tank top has a significant meaning in hip-­ hop, and not in a positive way as it ‘has come to represent (or be read) as a marker of violence toward women. The wife beater, a term used when referring to the white tank, has become part of the vocabulary in the hypermasculine world of hip hop [… projecting] an image of toughness helping to create a hard appearance’ (Steinberg et  al. 2010: 347). The term ‘wife beater’ in relation to the tank top is used nine times across seven separate songs in Eminem’s catalogue so he is clearly aware of its connotations. There are various points in his career when Eminem has drawn upon his sexuality. In the video for ‘Cleanin’ Out My Closet’, we have lingering shots of a rain-drenched Eminem digging a grave with his white vest stuck to him like a second skin, as overtly sexual as anything we’d see from the boy bands he so loathes. This is a rare occasion, though, where we see Eminem overtly sexualised without either overtones of humour (e.g. shirtless in ‘We made you’, ‘Without Me’, and ‘Superman’) or shock value (covered in blood in ‘3  am’ and ‘Framed’, or drowning himself in ‘Role Model), suggesting that he is very aware of the appeal of his physique but is either too self-conscious or too self-aware to flaunt it without hiding it behind laughs or gasps of shock. Eminem’s individuality comes across in a number of ways. There’s his nasal, fast-paced delivery for one, his family-focused lyrical content for another, and also his appearance. We have the bleached blond hair and bright blue eyes (often ringed with dark circles), of course, but we also have the elephant in the room: his colour. Alim et  al. say that ‘White American rappers must adopt a stance that references their Whiteness. They can achieve this by “outing” themselves discursively […] or stylistically by playing up socially salient variables that index White American speech such as hyper-rhotic realizations of postvocalic /r/ [something Eminem draws upon in his pronunciations of the ‘r’ sounds in ‘scared’, ‘there’, ‘square’ and ‘hair’ in ‘Square Dance’ for an example] (Alim et al.

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(eds.), 2009: 81). In Eminem’s case, he frequently ‘outs’ himself, starting from The Slim Shady LP where he draws attention to his Whiteness in ‘Brain Damage’, ‘If I Had’, and ‘Role Model’, but rarely the hyper-­roticity, unless he is sending up other white people (particularly those from southern states). In the video for ‘My name is’ Eminem parodies the ‘normative version’ of whiteness in rap, showing different versions of white that have been derided by rap (trailer-park white, famous white, nerdy white, powerful white, weirdo white, etc.), then very deliberately places himself opposite them […] by doing so, he created a new faction, one that could exist within the largely non-white rap world as an ally and contemporary instead of a novelty’ (Serrano 2015: 132). White rappers had existed before and been quite commercially successful, but some, like Vanilla Ice and Snow, had been seen as novelty acts and were never taken seriously by the hip-hop community. Campbell says that one of the reasons they ‘find Eminem such an appealing rapper is that he represents a different kind of whiteness, one far removed from middle-­class privilege and entitlement’ (Campbell 2007: 340), backed up by Alim et al. who say that ‘in spite of belonging to different racial cohorts […] white artists like The Beastie Boys and Eminem still shared membership of an underclass in the political economy of the United States’ (Alim et al. (eds.) 2009: 119). This ‘underclass’ status is also relevant to what Armstrong highlights as the importance of ‘artists’ local allegiances and territorial identities in relation to authenticity’ (Armstrong 2004: 336). Eminem’s hometown of Detroit, a city whose ‘labor force […] during the period 1980–1990 […]experienced the highest decline among America’s largest cities’ (Humanity and Society 1999) looms large in his lyrics, getting 29 mentions across 20 songs (including cyphers and freestyles) and a number of other mentions through terms like ‘313’ (a Detroit telephone area code), ‘8 Mile’ (a road in Detroit), and Amityville (a slang term Eminem uses for the city). In the 1999 MTV documentary ‘Eminem in Detroit’, it’s clear that Eminem has a real fondness for his hometown, despite how bleakly he depicts it in his lyrics. As he says: ‘I’m a Detroiter for life’ (MTV News 1999). According to his mother, ‘“Marshall loved [his house on Dresden Street, Detroit] so much that he had a model of it made to take on tour with him,” she wrote. “Even though we’d moved a lot, he always said the house on Dresden was his childhood home”’ (Abbey-Lambertz 2013). The house featured on the cover of both 2000s The Marshall Mathers LP and 2013s The Marshall Mathers LP 2 suggesting that Detroit holds an enormous significance to him personally, but also succeeds in reminding people of then humble roots he grew from. Eminem’s whiteness may make him ‘stand out like a green hat with a orange bill’

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(Eminem 1999) in the hip-hop community, but his self-­success, territorial identity, knowledge of genre, and, perhaps above all, skill as a rapper, means that he has been accepted as ‘authentic’ in the genre. One gets the feeling listening to Eminem’s lyrics that he feels the need to persuade himself of his credentials, skill, and authenticity as much as he needs to persuade anyone else. His main drive, especially on his last few albums, doesn’t seem to be related to success in terms of awards or record sales, but the desire to stay relevant in the hip-hop world. As he points out in ‘Lucky you’, he ‘wasn’t in it for the trophies, just the fuckin’ recognition’, and suggests that he ‘sold his soul’ to win his awards (2018). In ‘So Far…’ he points out that he was named ‘artist of the decade’ but can’t hang up the award because ‘the frame is all cracked’ (2013e) suggesting that it means very little to him. Songs like ‘Believe’ work almost as a plea to show that he’s still relevant, that he has all the credentials to be authentic due to his unglamourous roots (‘I started from the bottom’; ‘Minimum wage for general labor’; ‘welfare recipient since a minor’ ((2017c)), that he still has what it takes to be at his best (‘I haven’t ran out of gas yet’; ‘feel the need to go full tilt’ ((2017c)), and questioning why he still needs to prove himself—or feel that he needs to prove himself despite having already ‘hit ‘em with the coup de grâce’ and given ‘everything I had to give you to make you see’ (2017c). In Eminem’s eyes, ‘making it’ is not being ‘a superstar rapper, not as an ill-ass white boy, but as a respected emcee’ (Eminem 2000: 4) and it’s clearly respect that he values above all else. It stands to reason, then, that disrespect is likely to anger him.

Getting a Reaction Stanley Johnson suggests that Eminem’s ongoing popularity might be due to him writing ‘songs that show his actual emotions and […not] just talking about bitches and cars and money’ (Myhre 2014: 192), and Marianne Horsdal posits that such content can lead to a deeper connection with the listener as they ‘identify emotionally with narratives of personal experience’ (Horsdal 2012: 26). Eminem’s continuing portrayals of his personal life in his songs, then, aren’t necessarily just for the cathartic purposes we’ve discussed before, but a deliberate way of connecting on an emotional level with his audience, drawing upon the fundamental mode of persuasion Pathos, which ‘is the appeal to emotion—not just sadness or pity… but excitement, fear, love, patriotism, or amusement’ (Leith 2015: 86). How we connect on an emotional level with Eminem’s lyrics will vary from individual to individual, of course, and much will depend either how sympathetic we are to

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his stories if we can’t relate to them on a personal level, or how empathetic we are to them if we can. With a song, each listener comes up with their own interpretations, based on their own understanding of the linguistic and societal cues on offer, and mix them with their own lived experiences (and knowledge of the artist, genre, and music in general) to formulate what the meaning is to them. This might not match the lyricist’s own intended meaning, of course, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less valid, as, whatever meaning is created in someone’s head is authentic and real because it is to them. Such ‘wrong’ interpretations can be influenced by a number of factors, including mis-hearing or misunderstanding particular words or phrases, and any lyricist need to be aware that this might lead to their intentions not coming across to every listener. Is it therefore better to have ambiguous songs with accessible lyrics so as not to alienate people who might ‘misunderstand’ them? There’s certainly a reason why massive-selling songs seem to have very simplistic ‘messages’ (see Adele and Ed Sheeran’s near-constant formula of universal themes of love/loss/regret songs for current examples). I wrote in a previous book that ‘the songwriter provides a template onto which the listener places an interpretation’ (Fosbraey and Melrose 2018: 17), and music, more than any other medium, requires the listener to interact with the lyrics. ‘We identify emotionally with narratives of personal experience’ (Horsdal 2012: 26) largely because we connect those experiences with our own to form a connection with the lyrics. For me personally, a great deal of what Eminem talks about has no connection to my own life at all (e.g. living in Detroit, or growing up in a single parent household), but other things (e.g. moving around a lot as a child, trying to be a good father to his daughter, struggling with insecurities) resonate a great deal, and there are certain lines, like ‘My daughter wants to throw the ball, but I’m too stressed to play’ (Eminem 1999) from ‘Rock Bottom’ which resonate so deeply that I could have written them myself. We can also build a cumulative relationship with artists we like, building emotional bonds as we spend year after year in their company, watching and listening to them age, mature, and change over time. Some emotional connections rely on this and require prior information to experience the reactions Eminem desires. In ‘Headlights’, for example, we may get an emotional reaction to the lyrics if we listen without knowing any of the history behind it, but to get the full emotional impact it’s necessary to have heard songs like ‘Cleaning out my Closet’ in order to appreciate the significance of Eminem saying he loves his mother and wants to put their past differences behind them. As Zane Lowe says in a 2013 interview with Eminem: ‘your fans have been with you on this journey… they’ve experienced what you’ve experienced… so to come

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full circle on this song is kind of important to them as well’ (Lowe 2013). The talented writer doesn’t simply ‘info. dump’, though; as with the ‘familiar signs’ we discussed in Part 1, which served as shortcuts to storytelling, the writer includes emotional cues as shortcuts which serve as shortcuts to emotional connection, using pathetic language in an attempt to ‘elicit an emotional response from the audience’ (Shabo 2010: 8).

Emotions If a writer adds emotions to their characters, they add depth to them and increase the chances of us being sympathetic or empathic towards them. ‘The most salient characteristic in many definitions of empathy is the absorption of the individual in the feelings or experience of another […] when we experience it, we take on the emotional experience of another as our own’ (Sklar 2013: 24). ‘Sympathy may involve a “vicarious” or empathic emotional response to another’s experience; ultimately, though, sympathy requires distance—a clear separation of the sympathizer’s experience from that of the other’ (Sklar 2013: 25). Seger outlines the basic emotions as ‘mad, sad, glad, and scared’ and expands them as follows: Mad implies angry, filled with rage, peeved, frustrated, irritated, and flying off the handle. Sad implies depressed, feeling hopeless, discouraged, self-destructive, and melancholy. Glad implies joy, happiness, and ecstasy. Scared implies fear, terror, horror, and anxiety’ (Seger 1990: 35). Examples of Eminem ‘mad’ songs: ‘Kill You’; ‘The Way I am’; ‘White America’; ‘Evil Deeds’; ‘Mosh’ Examples of Eminem ‘sad’ songs: ‘Like Toy Soldiers’; ‘Mockingbird’; ‘When I’m Gone’; ‘Beautiful’; ‘Bad Husband’ Examples of Eminem ‘glad’ songs: ‘Shake That’; ‘Old Time’s Sake’; ‘Crack a Bottle’; ‘Headlights’; ‘Those Kinda Nights’ Examples of Eminem ‘scared’ songs: ‘Going Through Changes’; ‘Déjà vu’; ‘Legacy’; ‘Survival’; ‘Arose’ Examples of multiple emotions: ‘Kim’ (mad, sad, and scared); ‘Bad Guy’ (mad, sad, glad); ‘Stepdad’ (mad, glad, scared); ‘Still Don’t Give a Fuck (mad, scared, glad); ‘Ridaz’ (mad, scared, glad) The important thing is how Eminem transfers these emotions on to us.

‘Beautiful’

Mad (rage, frustration, irritation)

‘The Way I am’

How it transfers to the listener

(continued)

It’s certainly an unusual experience to hear a song where the artist rages against his fans and yet expects sympathy from them, but the way Eminem constructs his argument shows the fans’ behaviours as unreasonable and intrusive, especially when they’re bothering him when he’s with his daughter. As with many of his songs, it’s his love of Hailie that makes us like him (and therefore side with him) but here it’s also his brutal honesty that endears him to us, including instances where he criticizes himself too (e.g. ‘I can be a prick’) The song depicts him as human, just like we are, and so we’re invited to think how we’d feel in his position. It also feels like an unguarded outpouring of emotions where Eminem is venting his frustrations, starting with his introduction, where he abandons the ‘this song is for…’ address, preferring instead to tell us to shut up and listen, as if he can hold it all in no longer. Our reaction to this song is likely to be sympathetic rather than empathic as the notion of us imaging what he’s going through as a famous and wealthy artist necessitates a distance between us and him, try as he might to close that gap. Sad (depressed, The opening line of Eminem’s first verse speaks directly to his current depression and ‘slump’, so we’re hopeless, in no doubt as to the mood of the song. Unlike ‘The Way I Am’, where he does actually vent, here, he melancholy) says he’s attempting (and failing) to, suggesting a lot of his hopelessness is caused by his inability to find the ‘spark’ that previously drove his creativity. Like ‘The Way I am’, though, we are being invited to ‘walk in his shoes’, which once again forces us onto the inside of the story, making us engage with his plight. The outro. to the song, which mentions his ‘babies’ reminds us that the sadness he’s feeling also has repercussions and affects his ability to look after his children. This serves to heighten the emotions of what we’ve just heard and makes for a much more intense listening experience with subsequent plays. Depending on our own personal experiences, this song may either elicit sympathy or empathy in us. If we’ve experienced depression and hopelessness, we’re likely to be empathic; if not, we’ll likely be sympathetic.

Emotion

Song

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Emotion

Glad (happiness, ecstasy)

Scared (fear and anxiety)

Mad (rage), scared (fear), sad (hopeless) Glad (happiness)

Song

‘Those Kinda Nights’

‘Walk On Water’

‘Kim’

(continued)

A ‘good old days’ song which sees Eminem reminiscing about nights out with D12. The narrative itself is somewhat uninspired and thin, expanding on Ed Sheeran’s chorus lyrics and recounting a series of sexual conquests. The transference of emotion from lyrics to listener come more from the overall concept, therefore, which invites us to think back to nights out we had with our friends and get lost in nostalgia. Likely to inspire empathic feelings if we’ve experience such nights. Focussing on Eminem’s fears of not being able to live up to the ‘high bar’ he’s set himself, this song is a rarity in Eminem’s catalogue due to the stripped-back production, which features only piano and strings. The lack of drums and bass that are a staple of hip hop make Eminem sound exposed and vulnerable here, like he’s completely on show and there’s nowhere to hide, and this reflects the lyrical content. As well as the lyrics which explore his concern of not being as good as he was, we also see Eminem scared that he’s no longer relevant (something which clearly concerns him a great deal, as he goes to great lengths on other songs to prove he still is), until he persuades himself otherwise towards the end of the song. Anyone who is self-­critical and feels under pressure will feel empathy here. A great deal of the emotions in this song come from the sound of Eminem’s vocal, which is more akin to a performance from an actor than it is a rap from a hip-hop artist. Mostly, Eminem performs angrily, but it’s a much more nuanced performance than that, for there are plenty of other emotions in there, too, each one believable. The way Eminem is so happy at the start of the song, speaking with Hailie in a loving, gentle way is startlingly juxtaposed with the way he addresses Kim for the first time in the song. Anger prevails for much of the first verse, but there’s also an utter desperation and hopelessness in Eminem’s voice as he struggles to figure out how this situation has come about, and he seems close to tears on a few occasions. The choruses themselves, sung by Eminem rather than his more common chorus technique of sprechensgang is ugly and mocking. When ‘Kim’ says ‘I love’ you, Eminem seems close to crying again and busies himself with the radio to regain his composure. His inner turmoil reaches a crescendo at the end of the second verse where, struggling to contain his emotions, he shouts

How it transfers to the listener

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‘I hate you’ three times before saying ‘Oh my God I love you’ and questions how Kim could ‘do’ this to him. The chorus is a flash forward in time, as it suggests Kim has already gone. By the third verse, Eminem has stopped the car and busies himself with figuring out his alibi, but before he does this, he draws attention to the fact he’s ‘cracking up’, followed by potentially the most disturbing section of the whole song (which takes some doing), where Eminem, almost light-heartedly, reminisces about a party, saying ‘that was funny, wasn’t it?’, and when there’s no response, shouting the question again until Kim responds with a ‘yes’ screamed in terror. Another thing to take from this song is that Eminem’s voice is the only one we hear, and he takes on the character of Kim as well as this version of himself. Just as impressive as the way he performs he own character is the way he performs Kim’s, with her desperation, fear, and sadness both unsettling and harrowing. Empathy may come from the feeling of hopelessness, but the situation is more likely to evoke sympathy because it’s something (hopefully!) none of use will ever actually experience. The question of who we (should) feel sympathetic toward, is of course, a matter of debate. Kim’s plight naturally leads us to feel a great deal of sympathy towards her, but sung from Eminem’s perspective as it is, the song is set up to make us feel sympathy toward him in spite of his actions. Card suggests that writers can partially justify the ‘hate and rage’ of a ‘villain’ by giving them someone they love or respect and showing that they were deeply wronged at some time (Card 1999: 92) and establishing Eminem’s love for Hailie and Kim’s affair satisfies both of these. Just as we are drawn toward Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of The Lambs for his intelligence and the respect he shows Clarice, despite the crimes he’s committed, we are likewise drawn toward Eminem in this song, against our better judgement, and despite the atrocities he’s committing. Booth says that in fiction as we are ‘not in a position to profit from or be harmed by a fictional character, our judgement is disinterested, even in a sense irresponsible. We can easily find our interests magnetized by characters who would be unbearable as acquaintances’ (Booth 1968: 130). We may not like what Eminem or Slim Shady is saying, then, but we are drawn to him as a magnetic character, and because we know his actions cannot harm us, are more likely to ignore or condone his behaviours.

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Love ‘Love’ has been the most commonly used theme in popular music lyrics in every decade since the 1960s (Hsu and Xu 2017). As a universal theme most people can in some way relate to (even if not in a romantic way, ‘love’ can be accessed as an emotion via platonic relationships, or through family etc.), it’s a way for lyricists to create material that their fans don’t have to work too hard to bond with. Levitin identifies ‘four stages of love’ in songs: ‘I want you, I got you, I miss you, and it’s-overand I’m-heartbroken’ (Levitin 2009: 274) and we can see all four of these stages reflected across Eminem’s career, in the songs ‘Crazy in Love’ (‘I got you’); ‘Stronger than I was’ (‘I miss you’, and ‘it’s-overand-I’m-heartbroken’); ‘Love the way you lie’ (veering between ‘I want you’, ‘I got you’, ‘I miss you’, and ‘it’s-over-and-I’m-heartbroken’). In ‘Stronger than I was’, Eminem even tries his hand at a classic break-up song, albeit one which is laced with his go-to emotion of anger in amongst the sadness. It’s also his most cliched song, drawing upon such hackneyed phrases as ‘I can’t breathe’; ‘drop to knees’; ‘please don’t leave’; ‘you won’t break me’; ‘stronger than I was’; ‘hold me, please’; ‘get back up’; ‘you walked out’; ‘chin up’. Levitin suggests that love songs can also show different kinds of love as well: the Romeo-and-Juliet love (I’d kill myself for this person); the more mature love of being together for decades and looking back; and the love of ideals, such as of country’ (Levitin 2009: 274). We see Eminem using the ‘Romeo-andJuliet love’ in ‘Stronger than I was’ where he says he would rather die than be separated from his partner; his more mature ‘looking back’ love is present in the song ‘Bad Husband’ which sees him reminiscing on his relationship with Kim, and ‘love of ideals’ is certainly present in ‘Like Home’ where Eminem dreams of a better USA.

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The table below shows pathetic words and phrases that Eminem uses in his ‘love songs’ in order to have an impact on the listener. We have to be careful when pulling out and isolating individual words and phrase for the purposes of analysis, though, as it can lead to gross thematic misreadings. If we look at Little Mix’s 2016 album Glory Days, for example, we can pull out specific words like ‘hate; killer; dead; obsessive; insanity; scream’, which, taken out of the context of their sentences, completely warp how we might see the songs. Likewise, The Marshall Mathers LP contains words like ‘love; ‘friends’; ‘cute’; ‘angel’; ‘pretty’, and flowers’. What is more demonstrative is the consistency with which such words and images are used. While the aforementioned Glory Days album includes only seven words that could be taken as ominous or sinister, ‘Kill You’ alone from The Marshall Mathers LP contains 51 such utterances, including ‘hating’, ‘choke’, ‘raping’, ‘abusing’, ‘violence’, ‘vile’, ‘blood’, ‘guts’, ‘cuts’, ‘knives’, ‘chainsaw’, ‘murder’, ‘killer’, and ‘bloodstain’ leading us to fairly assume that such words are representative of the song as a whole. The individual examples below, therefore, are similarly representative of the songs they’re taken from and capture the tone effectively.

Impact This is an uncharacteristically serious and emotionallycharged song, with little of the anger that is present in most of his ‘love songs’. The desired impact is to make us feel the distress of his situation, and to hammer home the physical impact this situation has had on him. The song’s positioning, both in terms of where it appears on the album (The Marshall Mathers LP 2) and within his entire career is significant. On the album, it follows ‘Rap God’ and ‘Brainless’ two songs which focus on his longevity, success, and impact as an artist. If this wasn’t established, and if it was early in his career, it’s unlikely Eminem would release such a vulnerable (and dare I say it, emotional) song. Prior knowledge of his previous struggles also serves to prevent the song from being one big cliché, parroting phrases that have been used ad nauseum in love songs before (e.g. ‘I can’t breathe’; ‘drop to knees’; ‘please don’t leave’; ‘you won’t break me’; ‘stronger than I was’; ‘hold me, please’; ‘get back up’; ‘you walked out’; ‘chin up’). Knowing Eminem has bene through so much makes us sympathetic here because we surmise the grief he’s feeling here is an accumulation of all he’s been through before.

Pathetic words and phrases (with their functions in parentheses)

Shot (the rejection feels as bad as being shot, which is certainly hyperbole as Mathers has never been shot); gasp (the emotional pain is so strong it’s left him struggling to breathe); please (not overly symbolic as a word, per se, but it’s unusual to see Eminem position himself as someone who needs to plead: usually he’s the one who needs to be in control); sick (more physical description of how the emotion is making him feel); break (he will need to put himself back together); crumble (ditto); shattered (ditto); traumatized (for someone who’s been through so much trauma already in his life, for this to have such an impact requires us to take it seriously. Thus, what would seem cliché does have an impact… if we’re familiar with his past trauma, that is; vomited (see sickness); cried (as with ‘please’, this image isn’t something we’d normally associate with Eminem. As he’s gone to great lengths in previous songs to talk about how he needs to carry great weight on his shoulders, we might see this as the episode which finally broke through his façade).

Song

‘Stronger than I was’

Examples of Pathetic Words and Phrases in Eminem’s ‘Love songs’

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‘Need Me’

‘Need me’ (‘need’ and ‘love’ are two separate emotional states, and the simple difference between ‘you love me’ and ‘you need me’ are at the heart of the song: the relationship is built on dependency rather than love); ‘I love her so much’ (takes on quite a poignancy as we realise it’s not necessarily reciprocated); ‘save you’ (paints Eminem as someone who is making all the effort to help this person, who he feels responsible for); ‘You’re using my heart for a dartboard’ (a strong image in itself as it equates love with hurt, but the word ‘using’ is particularly telling as it positions the female character as the ‘user’ and Eminem as the one ‘being used’); ‘aligned stars’ and ‘we were made for each other’ (both suggest that their relationship is ‘destiny’ and is, perhaps, why Eminem isn’t willing to give up on it); ‘your smile is as rare as it comes’ (one of the rare positives Eminem attaches the female character, this demonstrates that she is special and therefore is worth the upset she causes him). (continued)

A duet with Pink taking on the voice of the female character in the relationship, and Eminem the male, this is a melancholy song where, unusually, we don’t hear Eminem’s voice (by itself) until over halfway through the song. This may suggest that Eminem as the one in the relationship who isn’t always heard, and when we first hear his voice (which is as a harmony part to Pink’s lead vocal) he is simply agreeing with what she says. When he does get to speak by himself, we see him as the victim of what he sees as a one-sided relationship, where he feels like he’s her ‘dad’ and is scared to leave due to what it might do to her. Revisiting the choruses, then, we can now see Pink is actually speaking on Eminem’s behalf, and what we thought was a dual narrative is actually all Eminem’s voice, despite the two performers.

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Impact Even though this isn’t ‘romantic’ love song in the traditional sense, it is still a love song in that it is an expression of love toward Hailie. The lyric is supposed to represent Eminem talking to Hailie as he lies dying in hospital on her birthday, just before Christmas and is about as pathos-heavy as any song gets, not just one from Eminem’s catalogue. We need prior knowledge of Eminem’s love for Hailie in order for the lyrics to have maximum impact, knowing how committed he is to her and how much it would hurt him to let her down, or never seeing her graduate or ‘walk her down the aisle’, but it functions without this, as most of us could imagine the distress he is feeling in such a situation. As someone who’s always been so strong and supportive, to be in such a helpless situation tugs at the listener’s heartstrings and wills him to get better.

Pathetic words and phrases (with their functions in parentheses)

‘Death’ (demonstrates that both the situation and Eminem are serious); ‘I Love You’ (given the circumstances, where he says that death is looking definite, the final ‘I love you’ to his daughter is extremely emotional); ‘Underwater’ and ‘Submerged’ (both demonstrating the struggle of what he’s facing); ‘Sorry’ (as with ‘I love you’, the position of this word is important, coming just as they’re switching off his life support. This shows Eminem as selfless, not concerned about his own plight, but sorry that his death will mean he can’t be there for his daughter); ‘Crying’ (showing a softness and vulnerability we wouldn’t have thought Eminem capable of in the early albums, this shows he has matured as a person); ‘Hai’, ‘Jade’, and ‘Bean’ (using three nicknames— or two nicknames and a middle name—for Hailie shows a sincerity and realism here, making it more personal, and thus more emotionally hard-hitting as it does feel like a private conversation between the two of them.

Song

‘Arose’

(continued)

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Hate and Anger Love for Eminem invariably comes with a side-serving of anger: even in songs where he is expressing love for Hailie, his anger is never far away, whether this is directed at Kim (see ‘Hailie’s Song’), the fans (‘Evil Deeds’), or himself (‘Déjà vu’). In the Eminem world, love and anger are bedfellows, and one scarcely exists without the other. Nietzsche uses the term ‘Censor vitae’ or ‘critic of life’ to explain such an alternation between love and hatred, someone who ‘resents everything, good as well as evil’ (Nietzsche 2015: 32), which is suggestive of someone who wants to become free in his judgements about life until he becomes mature enough to ‘lie above’ such feelings. Anger at his mother and Kim is seemingly only as intense as it is because of his depth of love for them, and most of his rage concerns how they’ve let him down, wronged him, or slighted him in some way. Even when he’s trying to express love, he does so in a way that has unsettling undertones to it, like in ‘Headlights’ where he asserts that he would stop at nothing to see his own children, even resorting to coming down the chimney dressed as Santa and kidnapping them. This is designed to show Eminem’s dedication to and depth of love for his children but is actually unintentionally quite an uncomfortable image. The image in the same song of him flipping every mattress is quite a violent one, too, one that suggests him being in a rage as he upends room after room in search of his children. We see this in ‘Love the way you lie’ too, which is actually more about violence, possession, jealousy, spite, and revenge than it is love. Eminem uses the word ‘hate’ (or variation thereof) 129 times in his studio albums. Much of this is discussing the hatred aimed at himself from others, but he also directly says that he hates (among other things): his stepdad, his father, ‘Jackboys’ (a slang term for thieves), critics, ‘choppy flow’ style of modern rappers, himself (he is described by Jonathan Shechter, founding editor of The Source as having ‘an unhealthy dose of morbid selfhate’ (Eminem 2000: xi)), ‘a pussy’, ‘fags’, an unnamed girlfriend, ‘all bitches’, his mother, and Kim (he has a tattoo on his stomach of a gravestone with ‘Kim’ on it, and the words ‘rot in pieces’ underneath.) In ‘Love Game’, he even goes as far as to say that he has ‘infinite hate’ in his blood. Eminem’s hatred manifests itself either in teasing his quarry, and act which Nietzsche says ‘gives us pleasure to release our power on the other person and experience an enjoyable feeling of superiority’ (Nietzsche 2015: 29) or leads to anger, an act Nietzsche says can function as ‘our own enjoyment’ as ‘a feeling of revenge…’ (Nietzsche 2015: 29).

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‘… a proper definition of anger… must always be felt towards some particular individual…must be felt because the other has done or intended to do something to him or one of his friends. It must always be attended by a certain pleasure—that which arises from the expectation of revenge. [… ] the belief that you will attain your aim is pleasant… It is also attended by a certain pleasure because the thoughts dwell upon the act of vengeance, and the images then called up cause pleasure, like the images called up in dreams.’ (Roberts 2020: 55)

This might explain why Eminem is always angry, always on the search for a new enemy or target. He thrives on the anger: this is clearly when a lot of his energy is derived from, and he relishes the victories each ‘battle’ provides him. Leith suggest that our ‘hopes of stirring the audience to anger […] depends on the extent to which they are prepared to identify with the anger […] you yourself seem to feel’ (Leith 2012: 48–49) and Roberts says that ‘…the orator will have to speak so as to bring his hearers into a frame of mind that will dispose them to anger, and to represent his adversaries as open to such charges and possessed of such qualities as do make people angry’ (Roberts 2020: 58). ‘Cleanin’ out my Closet’, one of Eminem’s angriest songs, gets its emotions across to the listener by careful structuring. Initially, it doesn’t give any immediate indication it will end up focusing on his mother, beginning as it does, almost as a sequel to ‘The Way I Am’ with Eminem rallying against those who have criticised him. At the end of the first verse, though, he says he’s going to make his mother ‘look ridiculous’ before moving into the chorus, which essentially says ‘sorry if what I’m about to say hurts you, but I need to say it anyway.’ The second verse moves way from his mother again, in order to focus on the abandonment by his father. Both this, and the first verse, succeed in building up sympathy for Eminem and painting him as a victim and someone who has triumphed over adversity, not only to become a huge star (admirable) but also a good father (admirable and relatable). When we get to the third verse, then, where he begins the assault on his mother, he’s got us on side. The third verse builds up a case against his mother, going right back to his birth, so when he calls her a ‘selfish bitch’ and hopes that she ‘burns in hell’ for what she’s done, we aren’t aghast that he can talk to his mother in that way, but sympathetic to him because of what he’s been through. In fact, throughout the third verse, we find ourselves thinking ‘how could you?’ with every fresh allegation, e.g. Münchausen Syndrome

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by proxy: how could you?; Trying to live off Eminem’s success: how could you?; saying she’d preferred him to have died instead of his Uncle: how could you? etc. In ‘Rhyme or Reason’ Eminem ‘puts the elder Marshall Mathers center stage, blaming him for the developmental dysfunction that fuelled his rage and his rhymes’ (Bozza 2019: 179). The song, drawing on the song ‘Time of the Season’ by The Zombies, neatly subverts the ‘peace and love’ lyrics of the original’s ‘It’s the time of the season/ When love runs high’ (1968), changing them to ‘It’s the time of the season/ when hate runs high’ to better suit his purpose, which is essentially to call out his father for being such a negative influence on his life. Like ‘Cleanin’ Out My Closet’, Eminem doesn’t go straight in for the kill but begins with a broad speech about how much desire he has to keep hip-hop ‘alive’. When he does start to target his father, it’s via a call and response technique to the Zombies sample, replying as he does to each line of ‘What’s your name?/ Who’s your daddy?/ Is he rich like me?/ Has he taken any time to show you what you need to live?’ (1968) and using the last question to address the scars left by his abandonment in verse 2, where his anger starts to surface. It’s the second time this happens, though, when the real anger comes out, and tellingly, whereas in the first instance he’d replied to the ‘question’ ‘What’s your name’ with ‘Marshall’, this time he replies with ‘Shady’ suggesting (as we discussed in Part 2) that he’s going to let his ‘id’ take over and allow his true feelings to come out. And these true feelings are hate-filled, carried by a venomous vocal which shouts at his father for everything being his fault, and threatens to knock his ‘block’ off. Just in case we were in any doubt as to his feelings, Eminem peppers the song with pathetic words like ‘rage’, ‘mad’, ‘hate’, ‘torture’, ‘angrier’ to underline his points in red ink.

Eminem and the Protest Song Other examples of anger in Eminem’s songs are designed to have a wider impact and incite the listener to take direct action rather than just feel the anger and sympathise with it. Arnold et al. note that ‘when hip hop is at its best, it is a method for social critique and engagement, one of the most powerful, democratic, and versatile artistic methods in the contemporary world’ (Arnold et  al. 2019: 53), and Eminem has used his platform to speak out on social, political, and racial issues, as well as rallying against the censorship he feels so strongly about. In this section, I will analyse the

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songs ‘Sing For The Moment’, ‘Mosh’, and ‘Untouchable’—which protest against censorship, government, and Institutionalised racism respectively—in terms of how they persuade the listener to subscribe to their messages, and how they use what Aristotle calls the ‘three divisions of oratory—deliberative, forensic, and epideictic […where] Deliberative speaking urges us to either do or not do something … Forensic speaking either attacks or defends somebody … …[and] Epideictic oratory either praises or censures somebody’ (Roberts 1995: 2159). To expand a little ‘Deliberative attempts to make the future; Forensic attempts to change what we see as truth about the past (attempts which may of course also affect the future) [and] Epideictic attempts to reshape views of the present. An orator…can change the reality of how we value people and their creations (Booth 2004: 17). ‘Sing For the Moment’ Eminem begins ‘Sing for the moment’ by suggesting that the nightmare of ‘white parents’ is for their children to become like him, both in appearance and behaviour, but this is a prelude to discussing the influence of rap on young people in a broader sense. The song has three verses, and three different modes of persuasion. In Verse 1, Eminem talks in the third person about a ‘problem child’, but it’s a thinly veiled cover for his own childhood experience. Eminem is suggesting here that rap gave him an identity, and a way to escape what was going on in his home life. Even the violent episode where he hit his stepfather is written as a positive thing, almost as if such an act shows him finally able to have the confidence to defend himself, a confidence provided by the identity ‘rap’ has provided him with. The verse is an example of Epideictic speaking, with Eminem blaming the parents for their children’s shortcomings rather than hip hop, which they’re using as an excuse. Verse 2 sees Eminem in philosophical mood, analysing and hypothesising what is happing to the entertainment industry while also wondering how he managed to end up in such a position of authority. This leads to him finding himself open to criticism from (he says) critics, journalists, fans, and attorneys, slamming the police who want his autograph even as they’re arresting him. He then draws attention to the difference between art and life with the final lines where he questions how he would be fit to raise his daughter if he was capable of doing all the things he raps about. As such, the whole verse is an example of Forensic speaking as it attacks a

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number of people, calling them out for their hypocrisy, and urging them to look at their own behaviours rather than his. It also attempts to change what we see as truth about the past, encouraging us to see Eminem as the victim of an unfair system rather than the perpetrator of various misdemeanours. The third verse begins with what I believe to be one of the most succinct yet thought-provoking musings on the impact of song lyrics: ‘They say music can alter moods and talk to you/ Well can it load a gun up for you, and cock it too?’ and continues along a similar thread, questioning the negative impact hip hop can have and extolling its virtues. The verse is Deliberative as it’s attempting to change our minds about hip hop and urging us to see the value of listening to it in future. ‘Mosh’ The song begins with a group of children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance = pathos. Toward the end of the first line (‘I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America’), we hear the sound of a missile approaching, then exploding on the word ‘America’, which echoes and fades. When the children start the second line of the pledge, the song’s backing has started—a rather sombre, minor key instrumentation with plodding drums—but is overshadowed by more missiles, machine-gun fire. ‘Mosh’ defined by Merriam-Webster as ‘to engage in uninhibited often frenzied activities (such as intentional collision) with others near the stage at a rock concert’. As pathetic language, then, this word conjures up images of violence and rebellion, which, when juxtaposed with the children reciting the pledge of allegiance at the start of the songs suggests that Eminem is suggesting or encouraging children to rise up against something (we’re not yet sure what). This is one of Eminem’s most straight-forward songs in terms of rhymes schemes and types, and, compared to many of his other songs, the rhythm of his rapping is much more simplistic and streamlined. In the chorus he raps in triplets, and although Eminem will later criticise contemporary rappers for using this technique ‘to grant their songs excitement where there is none’ (Bozza 2019: 249), it’s something which, used sparingly, can ‘quite literally snatch… the listener’s ear (Bozza 2019: 248). The song begins with a group of children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, which conjures up pathetic feelings of patriotism, protection, and nostalgia (for those who went to American schools and recited it, anyway). The fact that

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a bomb lands at the end of it is an indication that all of this is under threat, and, as we later find out, this threat isn’t from overseas but from the US’s own government. Eminem starts his section with a call to arms, encouraging the listener to ‘mosh’ with him, before using ethos to establish his credentials as someone worthy of the platform he has. This is obviously important to Eminem, and it’s almost as if he’s trying to persuade himself that it’s OK for him to be serious and political because of what he’s achieved so far. The lines ‘I give sight to the blind, my insight through the mind/ I exercise my right to express when I feel it’s time’ (Eminem 2004c) show that he’s gearing up to say something but just taking some time to make sure the listener knows he’s the person to listen to. During this early section of the song, he takes the time to show himself as someone who has gone through difficulties and bounced back (e.g. the line ‘A father who has grown up with a fatherless past’ (Eminem 2004c)), his ability to help others (e.g. his assertion that he’s ‘helped launch a few more rap acts’). The whole thing has the feel of a politician looking to get the ear of voters by demonstrating their abilities as a person before actually talking about their policies. In this way, the song is reliant on the ‘Ethos’ mode of persuasion: Eminem needs to establish himself as a figure worth listening to, and he goes to great lengths to do this. More than half the song’s 877 words are taken up with him trying to persuade people to join him, listen to him, and trust him. Eminem then leads us into a series of rabble-rousing statements ‘Come along follow me’; ‘carry on’; ‘come with me’, assuring the listener that he won’t steer them wrong, then letting loose a number of pathetic words ‘fight’, ‘charge’, ‘stomp’, ‘march’ and a statement that we all need to come together, whatever race, to go up against an as-yet unidentified enemy that ‘ain’t gon’ stop us’. It takes 2m 17s for the ‘enemy’ to be identified as George W. Bush, and that the protests against him should continue until ‘they bring our troops home.’ Eminem then launches an attack on Bush, referring to him as a monster and a coward, and likening him to Bin Laden, a weapon of mass destruction, and suggesting he should go and ‘fight his own war’ to impress his father. The song contains both Deliberative and Forensic speaking. It is Deliberative in that it attempts to make us hate Bush, to make Americans vote for someone else at the next election, and to make us understand that such protests aim to make the future better for ‘our next generation’. It also suggests that being pro-war isn’t patriotic, and that to be anti-war isn’t to betray your country. Eminem makes it clear from the beginning via

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the use of the Pledge of Allegiance that he is pro-America, and we learn later on that he’s anti-war. It’s his aim, then, to show that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. It is Forensic in that it attempts to make us see the war in Iraq as wrong, that it was wrong to vote Bush into power, and, therefore, that such mistakes must be avoided in the future. Despite its serious attempts at persuasion, however, ‘Mosh’ may well be one of the weakest songs in the Eminem canon. None of his skills with language are on display, there’s no real hook to hang on to, and the rhetoric is largely ineffectual, failing as it does to offer any real suggestions except for a vague rebellion against the government. Too long is spent establishing character, and therefore Eminem makes this song more about him than the actual issues he’s protesting against. Despite the straight-­ faced sincerity of the track, Eminem takes a bit of an escape route at the end including the children’s laughter to take the sting out of the seriousness. Following it up with ‘Puke’, which begins with the sound of him vomiting also eradicates any sense of anger we’ve built up, taking us instantly from political statement into body humour. The sequencing of ‘Mosh’ after ‘Like Toy Soldiers’ on the album added weight to the latter, but the same can’t be said of ‘Puke’ following ‘Mosh’. If anything, such a literal purge of bodily fluids suggests that Eminem is getting all of that serious stuff out of his system before moving on to the Kim/ celeb bashing on the rest of the album. ‘Untouchable’ The song begins with Eminem’s subdued and heartfelt singing, mixed in with SFX of police sirens, taking a philosophical view on the differences between cultures by singing ‘We ain’t ever gonna grasp what each other goes through’ (2017). This is cut off by a gun shot, and the song proper comes in, the peace shattered as Eminem takes on the perspective of a (presumably white) police officer who proceeds to stereotype black people, say he would be ‘delighted’ to shoot a ‘homie’ in the back then taser them, and justifying his actions by reassuring himself it’s all for his country. When speaking on behalf of the police, he is being satirical, sending them up by revealing their illogical nature of their thoughts and actions. A satire’s purpose is to ‘reform… [laying] bare only what is reprehensible in the management of public affairs, or what is blameworthy in public morals’ (Williams 1890: 253). In order to ‘get’ the song, we are required to understand such satire, and appreciate the knowledge he has of the

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situation. The words he is putting into the mouths of the police officer and the spokesperson from the black community show a great deal of understanding, evidenced through the use of the names Colin Kaepernick, Rodney King, and Freddie Gray. Eminem’s explanation of why there are such things as ‘black neighborhoods’ including use of terms like SectionEight lead us to believe he is an authority on the subject, and thus is a person to be listened to. The song is split into two parts, with Part 1 taking on the perspective of the police, and Part 2, production stripped, giving us two clear, discrete perspectives: the police (ill informed, illogical, inexcusably violent, racist), and the black communities (victimised, impoverished, ill-treated, stereotyped, anxious, and wronged). The second part removes the satire and levity (provided by the hook/ chorus in the first section, but also via how stupid the police look) and brings in a backing track more suited to traditional hip-hop with piano and drums as opposed to the rock drums and guitars from Part 1. The song contains Deliberative, Forensic, and Epideictic speaking. It is Deliberative in that we are being urged to see that there is institutional racism in the police force, and that things haven’t progressed since the 1960s with regard to civil rights. We also being encouraged to see segregated neighbourhoods as the fault of ‘America’ itself rather than individuals, and that the police’s lack of understanding as to what is means to be black is perpetuating prejudice, fear, and violence. The song isn’t a call to arms in the way ‘Mosh’ is, but an attempt to draw attention to these problems and thus change the future. It is Forensic in that the police are being attacked, as are numerous governments dating back to the 1960s. Eminem is trying to educate the listener as to why ‘black neighbourhoods’ exist in the first place, why the crime rates are often higher (poverty, lack of job opportunities, and an education that ‘sucks’), thus trying to change what we see as truth about the past. It is Epideictic as Eminem is asking us to see the present in a different way, as something that has very much been created by behaviours and mistakes of the past, and that the black communities that are ‘trapped in these racial biases’, and that any attempt to protest against it (like Colin Kaepernick) is made to feel like a traitor. There is plenty of pathos in here, with the emotions of anger and injustice visible throughout. The decision to speak as the police allows the listener to rail against what is being said, to actively disagree rather than passively agree, which is arguably the stronger reaction. By having such ignorance presented to us, we’re not being preached to, or told what to

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think: we’re reacting in our own way (however much we’re being led to that reaction by Eminem). This puts the listener in the position of ‘judge’, as Aristotle suggests, where we have ‘a decision to make about things past or future’—Aristotle (Roberts 1995: 2159)’ rather than a basic observer.

Humour Bozza observes that ‘Eminem laughs both with and at himself, as well as at popular media and anyone else who doesn’t get the joke. His humour is part of an arsenal that allows him to subvert popular culture while being a card-carrying member of the mainstream’ (Bozza 2004: 79). Leith comments that humour ‘can be a powerful rhetorical tool’ saying that it ‘participates in the pathos appeal inasmuch as it stirs an audience’s emotions to laughter—but more importantly, it participates in the ethos appeal inasmuch as laughter is based on a set of common assumptions’ (Leith 2012: 124). In order to ‘get’ a joke, therefore, the audience must ‘have a deep familiarity with the institutions, lore, and values that lie behind them’ (Conley 2010: 67) and this is why most of Eminem’s jokes are aimed at people we know, either because they were already famous (e.g. Christopher Reeve, Sonny Bono, Limp Bizkit), or became famous because he rapped about them (e.g. Kim, his mother, the fictional Ken Kaniff). Understanding the jokes make us feel like we’re a part of something, putting us on the ‘inside’, almost like we’re friends with Eminem, and this is a powerful way to create a bond between artist and listener. Eminem’s ‘trickster’ bad boy image also serves as a rhetorical device designed to make his ‘to hell with authority’ attitude appeal to us because it’s something we would never dare to do, and his frequent use of puns in his lyrics ties in with the concept of the carnivalesque and its ‘temporary liberation from the prevailing truth and from the established order’ (Morris 1994: 199). This also fits with how ‘…in its infancy, hip hop culture was especially about being rebellious and representing the antithesis of the establishment’ (Adejobi 2021). Richter states that ‘freedom produces jokes and jokes produce freedom’ (Richter 1804: 24) and Eminem desires to speak freely, be controversial, and thus create freedom for himself (and his listeners by proxy). Redfearn says: ‘one of the many synonyms for puns has been ‘catches’. We are caught out, thrown, and, as on a switchback, the jolt can breed laughter, nervous or otherwise. […] The pun

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is a practical joke, a cheat (though often a sweet one) […] The trickster-figure, who features in so many cultures, reminds by his very Protean changeability that language is all-powerful.’ (Redfern 1984: 15)

Puns in Eminem’s lyrics are legion, appearing in too many instances to list here but including: ‘Now you get to watch her leave out the window/ Guess that’s why they call it window pane’ (‘Love the Way you Lie’, 2013); ‘Your pussy lyric, I cunt hear it’ (‘Cinderella man’, 2010); ‘You sat on a shelf, I feel like I’m a bust/ Maybe I’m just ahead of myself’ (‘Heat’, 2017), and ‘It’s because you worship D12’s balls, you’re sack-religious’ (‘Fall’, 2018). On the songs ‘Bad Guy’ and ‘Asshole’, following the respective puns ‘…treat your bedroom window like I reach my full potential—I peeked’ (2013b) and ‘it’s like telling Gwen Stefani that she sold out/ ‘Cause I was trying to leave No Doubt’ (2013) the music even drops out, giving us the hip-hop equivalent of the ‘buh-boom-tis’ that follows a cheesy joke from a cabaret comedian. As with his jokes, the puns work as an interaction between Eminem and his listeners, and similarly, the success of the pun depends entirely on the listener ‘getting’ it, and to do so they ‘must understand the code in which it is delivered […and…] be able to recognize instances of broken (or merely bent) linguistic rules’ (Chiaro 1992: 11–13). In this way, ‘the recipient of a joke, in a sense, is in a similar position to the reader of poetry; both need to appreciate exactly how the comic/poet has toyed with the language’ (Chiaro 1992: 13).

Eminem and Rhetorical Devices Six Parts of a Speech McCloskey et al. identify the six parts of a speech in classical rhetoric: ‘The Exordium (an appeal to ethos, that is the character worthy of belief), the Narration (presenting the facts of the case), the Division (presenting what is to be proven), the Proof (the argument…), the Refutation (dealing with objection…), and the swelling crescendo of the Peroration. McCloskey and McCloskey (1994): xv)

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This section will examine how the song ‘White America’ uses these techniques. Exordium The first section, appearing before the music really starts is designed ‘to put the audience into a receptive and attentive frame of mind’ (Leith 2012: 84). In the first line of ‘White America’, Eminem uses the word ‘we’, ‘a pronoun notorious for being vague yet grouping people in ways suitable to message producers’ (Way 2017: 20) to give a collective concern to what comes next: it’s not just his opinion, it’s the opinion of… what… the whole country? That’s too much of a stretch, considering the amount of Bush supporters there were at the time. A clue comes from the line ‘broke their necks…’ where, with this simple grammatical error, saying ‘broke’ instead of the correct ‘broken’ situates Eminem as someone who is just an ordinary man, a man that speaks in a common language rather than the Queen’s English. As Burroway notes ‘we have tended to equate eloquence with arrogance at best and dishonesty at worst (Burroway 2007: 49). This one simple word makes Eminem an everyman we can relate to, regardless of the fact his wealth has now made him further away from being such as he’s ever been in his life. If the ‘we’ is an invite for us all to participate in the song, then the ‘ours’ in the line ‘this country of ours’ closes the net a little: this is a song for Americans, and Americans who think the same way as him. The rest of us may be entertained by the song; we may even agree with his points and find ourselves affected emotionally, but it’s not for us. The ‘we’ is the invite to participate in the song, to allow Eminem to speak for us, and the question he asks in the first verse: ‘how many people are proud to be citizens of this beautiful country of ours’ (Eminem 2002) is followed with some pathetic words such as ‘rights’, ‘protect’, and ‘freedom’, compelling the listener to answer with a resounding ‘yes’, or else feel unpatriotic. Once patriotism is established, Eminem is able to begin attacking the government without any risk of being accused of attacking his country, and he does so before his intro. is even finished, following up the line ‘…the freedom of speech the United States Government has sworn to uphold…’ with ‘or so we’re told…’. (2002).

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Narration The ‘facts’ of the case are that Eminem (and his fans) are making a stand against the censorship and criticism of Congress and the Government, and ‘White America’ in general, who he accuses of a hypocrisy, only caring about the apparent negative effects of hip hop when it’s impacting on their children. Eminem speaks about how it’s his appearance that has led to his sales, pointing to his blue eyes, ‘dimples’ and cuteness. It is estimated that about 27% of people in America have blue eyes (Barrell 2020), but it is considered rare for African American people to have them, and we can see, when looking at the rest of the song, that this is a commentary on race, with Eminem saying that he wouldn’t have sold as many records as he has if he were black (but initially his ‘whiteness’ held him back). Although this is, of course, merely Eminem’s opinion (however plausible it may be) he is still presenting it as fact, so it can be included as his ‘narration’ part of speech. Division In this section of speech, the speaker starts ‘by summarising the salient points of agreement, then set[s] out the points that are at issue’ (Leith 2012: 90). Eminem agrees that he is now in a position to have an influence over ‘suburban kids’ through his music, but takes issue with the fact his popularity is leading to him being treated different to previous hip-hop artists who, as he points out, used the same language as him but escaped such protestations. This, and a great deal of the rest of the song seeks to prove that there is a discrepancy in how hip hop is received when it’s performed by black artists or by white artists. He is essentially insinuating that the government only cares about the welfare and safety of white children, therefore, as they form a large part of his core fanbase. Proof The song is very light on ‘proof’—the arguments needed to support the case (logos)—but we can perhaps look to Eminem’s struggle to be signed as evidence that race didn’t work to his advantage when he was starting out (it could just be, of course, that Infinity wasn’t very good), but his sales figures at the time of writing this song, out-performing every black rapper by some distance is indeed indicative of his skin now ‘working to

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his benefit’ in ‘White America’. Having established his love for America and his popularity and influence, the listener is expected to be firmly in Eminem’s corner at this point and see him as a victim of a hate campaign against him (something which is threaded through The Eminem Show overall), something that is perpetuated in the next lines, where Eminem truly establishes himself as the hero as he relays that he has ‘shovelled shit’ all his life. So although the actual ‘proof’ of his argument is thin at best, he is reliant on the rhetoric of the opening verse (and the clout of his career achievements to date) to persuade the listener of his points. Refutation In the section where he raps about hip-hop never being a problem in Harlem ‘only in Boston’ (2002), Eminem is pushing back at those who are trying to censor him or ban him from performing by pointing out that lots of rappers have used problematic language in the past but it was ignored because it didn’t affect ‘White America’ and has only now become an issue because he is reaching (what he presumes to be) white fans in Boston rather than (what he presumes to be) black fans in Harlem. He also pushes back at those who criticise his use of misogynistic and homophobic language by actually using misogynistic and homophobic words, almost as if he’s inviting more criticism before taunting his detractors with his success via the lines that follow. Peroration In the section which is supposed to sum up the argument and ‘move the audience to tears of pity or howls of rage’ (Leith 2012: 104). Eminem mocks his detractors, suggesting sarcastically that he is everything they say he is because they’ve already decided that’s the case. He then launches into the aggressive crescendo where he says ‘Fuck you’ to Ms. Cheney, Tipper Gore, and renames the United States of America the ‘Divided States of Embarrassment’. Such direct and inflammatory language positions Eminem as heroic: someone willing to risk cancellation in order to protect his right to say whatever he wants, and, as an underdog—one man against the entire US Government—someone who can inspire us to stand up for ourselves against bigger and more powerful opponents. As an addendum, though, which seems to take the sting out of his peroration and move beyond the six parts of speech, he backtracks, saying

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that he’s just playing and actually loves America. Although potentially diluting the passionate message of the song, this outro does serve to unbalance the listener, forcing them to re-evaluate the song and determine for themselves whether or not the whole song is tongue in cheek or whether it’s this final addition which is the mistruth—suggesting he’s not just playing.

Analysing ‘Lose Yourself’ In 2003, at arguably the height of Eminem’s career, ‘Lose Yourself’ ‘a guitar-powered anthem about working hard enough to shed old identities, overcome obstacles, and achieve dreams, wins an Oscar for Music (Original Song). The song also stays steady at No.1 on the Billboard charts for 12 consecutive weeks’ (Dawkins 2013: 174). Many critics and academics have come up their own readings, of course, including this one from Jo Littler, who focuses on the song in terms of its opinions on fame and celebrity: ‘In the lyrics to Eminem’s Lose Yourself fame is not simply something that anyone talented can get if they work hard enough. The moments when it might pay off to strive are few and far between: celebrity is a chance moment, a fleeting conjunction, something necessary to seize because of its rarity. You mess up the moment and you will be back in the place you came from, the place to which you do not wish to return. Fame here is not merely the inevitable outcome of the diligent buffing up of some ‘raw talent’. It is not quite the low-­risk Protestant celebrity work ethic offered by Fame Academy. Eminem’s lyrics express a society in which celebrity is more of a random, and potentially cruel, lottery than a birthright for the righteously dedicated.’ Littler (2004: 8)

As I cover music video and biography elsewhere in this book, in this analysis, I will limit the ‘text’ to the song itself: the content we hear coming out of speakers or headphones, without any other factors interfering with the experience. I want to begin my own analysis of ‘Lose Yourself’ by looking at my own reactions to it. According to Callahan, ‘when it comes to art […] we are no longer speaking of data, styles, ethnic origin or market shares. We

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are speaking of emotions, feelings, loves, hates, angers, sorrows, desires, aspirations […and being moved] requires an interaction between participants mutually engaged in an exchange, a collective activity (Callahan 2005: 183). Markram puts forward the idea that ‘99 percent of what you see is not what comes in through the eyes. It is what you infer’ (Markram 2009) and it could be argued that the same kind of inference could be occurring when we listen to a song. ‘What one person hears or interprets may not be what another hears or interprets, and that we are drawing on our individual (social) and shared (cultural and political) experiences to create a bespoke reading, completely unique to ourselves’ (Fosbraey 2017: 62). This kind of ‘emotional osmosis’ may deviate from the author’s original intention (Fosbraey and Melrose 2018: 22–23) but it also allows us to analyse in a way that allows individual responses to be ‘relevant to an understanding of texts’ and that to listen is to ‘collaborate in a process akin to a performance’ (McCaw 2008: 71). Through this we see how the songwriter’s intention is not necessary in order for us to form a bond with a particular song, and we need look no further than ourselves in order to analyse. It may concern Romantic Poetry rather than hip hop lyrics, but Paul O’Flinn’s initial advice for ‘studying’ such texts to get a ‘feel’ for their contents works very well for our purposes here, suggesting as he does that we ‘look for the main idea or feeling’ (O’Flinn 2001: 24), identifying any hopes, fears, or tensions within the song, and see how they work toward creating the main idea. In ‘Lose Yourself’, for me, a great deal of ‘feeling’ is set up via the instrumental introduction, which runs for 33  seconds before Eminem’s first utterance. Powell notes ‘we have taught our composers that they need to include some violins and piano stuff if they want us to start getting out the handkerchiefs’ (Powell 2010: 143) and the first part of the introduction revolves around a sombre piano motif played in D minor, a key that Bhatara and Levitin equate with ‘sadness’ (Bhatara and Levitin 2014: 45). ‘There are a number of ways in which composers […] can establish or change the mood of a piece of music. Some of these mood effects rely on the animal responses of human beings and some depend on a shared musical culture between the composer and the listener’ (Powell 2010: 143). The first part of the introduction puts me in a certain frame of mind via the ‘shared musical culture’ of the listener equating minor keys with feelings of sadness, but it does also invite me to draw upon my own ‘animal responses’ in order to form a deeper reaction. The church organlike keyboard and vinyl crackles that back the piano add feelings of nostalgia and seriousness to the existing sadness, although, as yet, with nothing

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to attach these emotions to via the lyrics, I find myself reliant on my own memories that match such feelings. As such, before Eminem has even spoken, I have situated myself on the inside of the song because I am now emotionally engaged. The lyrics that follow will likely steer me away from the memories the music made me conjure op, but the feelings will remain throughout the song, meaning a lot of Eminem’s work in forming a ‘bond’ with me has been achieved without any lyrics at all. The second part of the introduction, a chugging, over-driven stab of guitar chords, only precedes Eminem’s first utterance by a few seconds, but in that short time it suggests that we have entered a new place, both emotionally and within the song’s structure. Gone is the plaintive piano and keyboards with its flowing melody and lack of a beat, and here is the rhythm-driven, ushering in a feeling of defiance and determination. If we’re going to be poetic about it’s the musical equivalent of us going to sleep sorrowful and filled with anguish and waking up to a new day full of purpose and vigour. When Eminem starts rapping, addressing me via the use of ‘you’ and asking if, given the chance, I would seize the opportunities given to me, the answer is a resounding ‘YES’. Without the marked contrast between the two musical styles in the separate parts of the introduction, this reaction wouldn’t be nearly so intense. The song proper, when we get past Eminem’s brief intro. and into the narrative of the lyrics, fits with these feelings perfectly and, having felt the emotions directly ourselves, transfer them onto the subject of the song (whether that’s Marshall, Eminem, or ‘Rabbit’) and we really root for him as he overcomes adversity and seeks to seize the opportunities presented to him. What the music doesn’t offer us is the frustration he feels in struggling to make everything work: to seize his dreams, earn money, and try to be a good father, but these feelings can be seen as part of the same negative set of emotions as the sadness we felt during the introduction—this is the struggle before the breakthrough, before the determination to succeed at all costs. The final line of the song ‘You can do anything you set your mind to, man’ sums up what Eminem has been saying for the whole song: despite every adversity that life throws at you, we can overcome them. As the final words, this is the message we are left with during the outro section, which, at 18 seconds, gives us plenty of time to mull things over before we leave the world of the song. Going back to Flynn’s suggestion that we identify the hopes, fears, or tensions within the song, for me, the hope is that our protagonist will succeed in escaping the financial and emotional turmoil he finds himself in, overcoming the adversities he’s faced and achieving his goals; the fear

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is that he’ll fall short—either through nerves (see verse 1), having too much pressure on him, or simply not having enough time to work 9-5, became a rap star, and look after his child; and the tension is that he’s on the cusp of success but could quite easily fail at any point: as he says, this is his one shot, and failure’s not an option. Löbner asserts that ‘the meaning of a word, more precisely a content word (noun, verb, adjective), is a concept that provides a mental description of a certain kind of entity. The meaning of a sentence is a concept that provides a mental description of a certain kind of situation’ (Löbner 2002: 22). In the spirit of looking at the song in a way that’s completely personal to me, though, and in a way that demonstrates how our own lived experiences can impact our reactions to a song in completely subjective ways, I’d like to draw attention to the line: ‘Tear this motherfuckin’ roof off like two dogs caged’ (2002). To me, it conjures up a completely different image and emotion to what most people would experience (see further discussion in the section on ‘Simile’ later in this section). As a child, there was a pub at the end of my road which had steel fire escape steps running up the side of it. At the top of these steps was a cage, and inside the cage, two ferocious rottweilers. This was in a time before the Dangerous Dogs Act, and I had grown up generally fearful of dogs, but these two really struck the fear into me, especially as every time I walked past them, they started to bark loudly and slam against the bars of their cage (looking back, this was a case of animal cruelty as much as anything else). So, to me, the aforementioned line ‘tear this motherfuckin’ roof off like two dogs caged’ takes me back to being a scared young child and makes me revisit the scenario I’d thought of again and again back then: the dogs escape, they come down those stairs, they cross the road, and they kill me. Of course, Eminem could hardly have foreseen that one of his listener’s might have such a reaction to that line, but it does warp its meaning for me, as in my mind it doesn’t mean ‘a determination to escape the confines of my current oppressive life’, as it will to most people, but ‘escape means certain death’. An extreme example of a case where one line of a song can alter its meaning in a completely irrational way, but an example nonetheless: sometimes the listener will run away with a thought or image, and if we’re to listen to Barthes’s desire to remove ‘the limit on interpretive possibilities in reading’ (Montgomery et al. 2010: 176), my reading of this line, however bizarre, is valid.

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Close Reading ‘Lose Yourself’ What follows is a ‘close reading’ analysis of Eminem’s Lose Yourself, where there will be ‘a tight focus on the specific details of language’, staying within the text rather than bringing into the analysis elements from outside the text, e.g. the life of Eminem, the politics of the time the song was released, nor its place in the history of hip-hop in general, but drawing upon its internal structure, through its ‘diction, syntax, tone, and internal context’ (McCaw 2008: 44). This is an ideal song for this purpose seeing as it’s so attached to the film 8 Mile and its music video which features clips from the same film. Analysing it without these images to accompany it allows us to examine how well it functions as a text in its own right, and how present day listeners might digest it if it comes up on a Spotify playlist or radio station without them having any knowledge of its attachment to the film. Due to copyright restrictions I’m unable to copy the lyrics line by line (or lexia by lexia) as I analyse, but I will make it clear which sections I am looking at and when, and readers will be able to match these with the many transcriptions of the lyrics available online. I’ll focus the analysis on the following things that we might look for when staying inside the text: The title The significance of the opening line Perspective Tenses Figurative Language Characters Rhyme The sound of the song: look at lengthy intro; how long it takes for drums to come in etc. Title ‘The first thing that might be considered is the title […]

Its relation to the rest of the text is important […] Considering whether the title is primarily denotative (as in descriptive) or connotative (that is, suggestive and allusive) is useful but it is also important to consider the range of meanings that a title could have because there may be more than one.’ Childs (2008: 107)

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Unlike in literature, or poetry in music, the song title is isolated from the track itself, for whilst often appearing in the song at some point, very rarely do we have it appearing at the very start of a track like a poem’s or short story’s title will appear at the top of a page, or a novel’s title will appear on the cover (and often at the top of each of page). As such, depending on how we receive music, the title might be the first or the last thing we are exposed to. If we buy a CD or vinyl, we might turn to the back cover and look at the song titles before listening to a single note of music. Alternatively, if we’re listening to Spotify on shuffle while doing something else (like writing, cooking dinner, or jogging) we might hear the music first and then come to the title later. Similarly if we’re listening to a song on the radio where the DJ gives the title after the song has finished rather than before it starts. The first interpretation of the title is the notion of losing oneself in a negative way, i.e. a loss of identity, or loss of self, something which relates to a definition of fear where ‘a victim of fear perceives a threat to his identity which he experiences as a loss of control’ (Saliba 1980: 39). It can also refer to a more positive interpretation, where one ‘loses oneself’ in music: a popular phrase which describe the feeling a person experiences where the effect of the music on them is so powerful and all-encompassing that the rest of the world is ‘lost’ to they can hear/feel/ think about nothing except the music they’re listening. As we move through the lyrics, this latter becomes the more likely interpretation for the title as, in the chorus, Eminem makes specific reference to music. Opening Line Childs also states that the ‘first line or sentence … serves as a prelude to the rest of the text’ (Childs 2008: 108) suggesting that we ask: ‘Does it orient you by giving information? Does it throw you into the narrative as though you had entered a story in the middle?’ (Childs 2008: 108). The song uses a third person narrative, using an omniscient narrator who can see into the minds of the characters. Burroway suggests that ‘This kind of narrator is free to tell us readers what to think or feel’ (Burroway 2007: 46). The opening lines, spoken rather than rapped, come as a direct address to the listener as the ‘you’, with us being given a scenario followed by a question (if we were given one opportunity to seize everything we ever wanted, would we ‘seize it’, or just let it slip?). The use of the word ‘just’

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in front of the words ‘let it slip’ reenforces the negativity of the word ‘slip’ itself, a word defined by Webster’s (in its verb form) as ‘to pass quickly or easily away: become lost’; ‘to fall into error or fault’; ‘to slide out of place or away from a support or one’s grasp’; or ‘to fall off from a standard or accustomed level by degrees’. It has got a couple of positive definitions, too, e.g. ‘to get away from’ or ‘to free oneself from’ (Merriam-Webster 2021) but from the use of the word ‘just’, and the way the phrase has been presented as the opposite of getting everything we ever wanted, it’s hard to see the slip as being a positive thing in this instance. In this opening section of 27 lines, then, Eminem is drawing us into the narrative that’s to come by asking what is essentially a rhetorical question (our analysis above suggesting that we’re being presented with a scenario so obviously weighted toward one outcome that it doesn’t necessitate an answer), a technique which ‘automatically engages the reader, sets him or her in the right framework, and personalizes it’ (Sternberg 2018: 38). We are now expecting for this ‘opportunity’ to be expanded upon in the coming sentences, but Eminem instead switches from his second person direct address to storytelling mode in the third person, where we are introduced to an (as yet) unnamed male. Before we get to this, however, there is one lexia that precedes it that seems insignificant but is worthy of note as it’s demonstrative of something much larger than the sum of its parts. I refer to the use of the word ‘Yo’ before Eminem starts the first verse. ‘The word ‘yo’ was so popular among hip-hop performers in the late 1980s that it spawned a TV show called Yo! MTV Raps’ (Kallen 2014: 35) and continues to be used regularly among rappers, either as a filler word, or to grab the attention ‘in place of words like you or hey (Kallen 2014: 35). It can also work as an indicator that something important or profound is about to occur, and that the listener should pay full attention, and is almost ritualistic in its usage (Emdin 2010: 73). In ‘Lose Yourself’, Eminem is using it in this way, preparing us for the gravitas of what he’s about to deliver, but also to provide a break between the direct address of the first section and the third person narrative of the first verse proper. Its usage also nods to the artists that have come before him in the genre and demonstrates that the song is authentic hip-hop despite its obvious cross-over into the pop genre. On to the first full line in the first verse, then. Here Eminem introduces a male character using the three nouns ‘palms’, ‘knees’, and ‘arms’, and three modifying adjectives ‘sweaty’, ‘weak’, and ‘heavy’ to describe his current condition. ‘Sweaty palms’ is commonly used as synonym for

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nervousness or anxiety; weak knees (or going weak at the knees) are/ is associated with a strong emotion that is overwhelming to the point where one feels faint; and heavy arms (although not a phrase I nor the internet are overly familiar with) conjures up an image of someone that is fatigued, or pressured. The next line reenforces this, suggesting that he has vomited due to being ‘sick with nerves’. Perspective The song starts off with a second person address from Eminem to ‘us’ the listener. It then switches to third person in the third verse (via what Burroway defines as a limited omniscient narrator ‘who may go inside the mind of one or two characters and observe from the outside’ (Burroway 2007: 46)), back to second person in the chorus, then into first person from verse 2 where an ‘I’ character is introduced (and remains for the duration of the song). This could mean that we have a narrator who emerges to speak directly to us in first and second person addresses, or we could attach it all to the character of ‘Rabbit’. Initially it seems like ‘Rabbit’ might be removed from the narrator because he’s named as a character, but this could be representative of him being an observer of the events of the first verse, where he’s nothing more than an observer of his own life. When the first person ‘I’ is used at the start of the second verse, then, this might not be the narrator appearing in the song, but Rabbit regaining control of his life, saying the world is his ‘for the taking’. When the third person address begins again later in the verse, it feels like Rabbit is imagining how his detractors see him and is speaking on their behalf. With this theory, the second person address of the chorus then becomes a pep talk of sorts, where we can imagine Rabbit looking at himself in the mirror insisting that he seizes his opportunity. Alternatively, it could be that Eminem began writing the song to focus on Rabbit (the first verse does closely mirror his character’s narrative in 8 Mile after all) but then brought himself into it later on. The second verse, where Eminem talks about struggling to juggle superstardom with being a father certainly moves away from Rabbit’s narrative in 8 Mile as he was neither superstar nor father during the film. This section could be Rabbit imagining what superstardom is like, but it’s very specific and detailed, whereas his dreams of success might be vaguer and broader. There’s also the question of why he would be imagining such a negative view of fame seeing that he’s still chasing it and continues to chase it in the choruses and in the third verse.

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Tenses The first time we hear Eminem speak in the song, he is inviting us to imagine a situation where we’re offered the chance to seize everything we ever wanted. Although his speech is rooted in the present tense, the question he’s asking necessitates us to imagine the future, a future where we have everything we want. This, coupled with the fact ‘we’ are being asked a direct question, serves to get us engaged with the song, considering what we would do in that situation, so when the third person narrative begins, we might be more inclined to put ourselves in their shoes. This section also comes before the song proper begins and is spoken slowly, rather than rapped, drawing attention to its own significance and distancing itself from the rest of the song. When this distancing happens again at the end of the song, with the line ‘You can do anything you set your mind to, man’ (2003) we may naturally make the connection between this and the question Eminem poses at the beginning, and thus leave the song with the idea that we would seize the opportunity because we can do anything we set our minds to, so we would succeed in our efforts. The majority of the song is written in the present tense, which brings immediacy to the lyrics, as if we’re experiencing the events with the narrator as they unfolding in real time. It is also a good way of bringing the past into the present to show that the events are still relevant to today’s world. There are some past tense utterances in the second verse, though, which allows Eminem to add depth to the song, suggesting that the issues he’s facing have been around for some time. Figurative Language Montgomery says that ‘figurative language […] generates a degree of indeterminacy in a text, which might be an important part of that text’s aesthetic effect. The attempt to interpret figurative language, then, is simply a particular case of the general problem of trying to determine authorial intention through inferencing; it leads not to certainty but to various degrees of uncertainty (Montgomery et  al. 2010: 122). Figurative language in ‘Lose Yourself’, then, may succeed in reenforcing the uncertainty and tension in Rabbit’s life. The different types of figurative language in ‘Lose Yourself’ occur via metaphor, simile, metonymy, and allegory, as well as through various uses of slang terms.

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Metaphor Tyson notes that metaphors ‘occur in language when one object is used as a stand-in for another, dissimilar object to which we want to nevertheless compare it’ (Tyson 2006: 30) and we see the following metaphors in ‘Lose Yourself’ (with their ‘stand-ins’ alongside them): • arms are heavy: turning tension, (mental) exhaustion, and anxiety (mental sensations) into physical ones so the listener can feel them more readily. • You better lose yourself in the music: meaning that in order for Rabbit to become a success in the music industry, he needs to commit all his time and energy to it. • I’ve been chewed up and spit out: meaning he has been treated badly then rejected by the industry and/ or fans. • I cannot grow old in ‘Salem’s Lot: meaning, via a reference to Stephen King’s novel of the same name, that the place he’s currently living in is sucking the blood (or life) out of him in the same way that the vampires in the novel are sucking the blood out of the residents. This metaphor relies heavily on the listener’s knowledge of the novel in order for it to work, but if they are aware, it’s a very strong image which underlines the importance of his ‘escape’ from his current existence. • Back to the lab again—Using the word ‘lab’ as a stand-in for ‘lyrics’ suggesting that his writing process is like a science. This suggests and importance to the process and makes us take it seriously. Simile ‘The simile that has describes the resemblance between two dissimilar things […] has been a literary device to lend colour to the English language since time immemorial’ (Sommer 2013: ix). ‘Simile and metaphor may be considered together as “different and overlapping aspects of imagery”’ (Mariaselvam 1988: 71) but the main function of a simile ‘is not to illustrate something already mentioned in the narrative, but to add things which are not mentioned in a different medium: imagery’ (Fowler 2000: 83). ‘Lose Yourself’ may only contain two similes, the first where Eminem/ Rabbit asserts that he’s going to ‘tear the roof off’ like ‘two dogs caged’, and the second where he compares his/ Rabbit’s life to that of a snail’s,

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but they are both rich with imagery and meaning. I’ve already spoken about the caged dogs reference as part of my personal reaction to the song, but my own feelings toward it are somewhat unusual based on personal experience. A much more likely ‘reading’ of the image is that Eminem’s determination to succeed can be likened to the determination caged dogs might to have to escape and achieve freedom, which presents us with a snarling, violent, and desperate image that emphasises just how much he needs to escape from his current life. The second simile, which likens Eminem’s life to a snail, is completely different, suggesting an inertia rather than an aggression. The two similes taken together, then, perfectly summarise the core conflict at the centre of the song: he wants to aggressively seize this opportunity (like dogs want to seize their opportunity to escape captivity), but his life is moving too slowly (like a snail) in order to gather the momentum to achieve such a feat. Metonymy Littlemore defines metonymy as ‘a figure of language and thought in which one entity is used to refer to, or in cognitive linguistic terms ‘provide access to’, another entity to which it is somehow related’ (Littlemore 2015: 4). Thus, metonymy requires the reader or listener’s common sense or everyday knowledge to make sense of such sentences. We have three main examples of metonymy in the song, and they all appear within a few lines of each other in the second verse. I list them below with the other ‘entities’ they’ve provided access to: Tryna feed and water my seed: taken literally this refers to him looking after some kind of plant that he’s growing from a seed, but it’s actually referring to his daughter. And there’s no movie, there’s no Mekhi Phifer, this is my life: this relates to, and directly references, the film 8 mile. If we’re aware of it, we know that it depicts a rather bleak narrative where Rabbit is struggling with money, relationships, and his pursuit of fame. In this line, Eminem is saying that his real life is actually even harder, and there’s no-one to help him through it in the way Mekhi Phifer did in the film. Pied Piper: Requires knowledge of the ‘Pied Piper of Hamlin’ story. If we have this, we can connect the two to come to conclusion that someone else is in control of Eminem’s life, and this adds to the feeling of hopelessness that’s a major theme of the song.

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Idioms Idioms ‘often rely for their meaning on metaphorical interpretations. ‘Kick the bucket’, for example, has a metaphorical meaning of ‘to die’ (rather gruesomely originating in the method of hanging criminals by kicking an upturned bucket away from their feet)’ (Stockwell 2002: 30). Eminem uses a number of Idioms in ‘Lose Yourself’, including the image of his back being to the ropes, which suggests that he’s under a great deal of pressure that he’s struggling to deal with it. The boxing image it conjures up also heightens the severity of the pressure he’s under, likening it to physical harm. It also suggests that, as happens in boxing when a fighter is against the ropes, that he’s taking a real onslaught of ‘punches’ that will be difficult to overcome. Other Idioms come via his assertion that he’s going to tear the ‘motherfuckin” roof off, which implies that he’s looking to make a big impact on the rap business that will have a lasting effect; his use of ‘teeter-totter’ to both refer to playing with his daughter and also swinging between his roles as a father and a ‘prima donna’; and ‘nose-­ dove’, which has a metaphorical meaning of a descent from success to failure (but in a characteristically dramatic way, as it encourages us to imagine an aeroplane heading towards a crash). Allegorical Language Defined by Furniss and Bath as a ‘fictional narrative, dialogue or scene which works on two parallel levels of meaning at one and the same time’ (Furniss and Bath 1996: 124), we see allegorical language on couple of occasions in ‘Lose Yourself’. On a lower allegorical level, the line which refers to there being vomit on Rabbit’s sweater makes sense at a literal level because it suggests (obviously) that Rabbit has vomited and some of it has gone on his sweater. But when combined with the previous line, which speaks about his performance anxiety, we understand at a second level that he has vomited due to his nerves, which makes it seem much more severe. It subsequently shows great character and resolve that he’s able to make it onto the stage in spite of being physically sick with nerves. We also see allegory in the line which talks about the clock running out and time being ‘up’. At a literal level this means that Rabbit has run out of time on stage, but at a second level it’s talking about his life, suggesting his time to chase his dream has run out and he needs to return to his poorly paid ‘9-5’. As with the stage-fright situation, though, his ability to

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forge ahead in spite of this huge setback is demonstrative of his strength of character. By the end of the first verse, then, with these two example of allegory, we are able to see a character who has great determination and is able to take setbacks and keep bouncing back. Apostrophe This involves ‘addressing an absent person as if present’ (Clark 1891: 161) and is for ‘the language of passion, or strong emotion only’ (Blair 1814: 257). We see this in the line towards the end of the final verse, where Rabbit addresses his mother, telling her that he needs to move away from their trailer park home if he’s ever going to realise his dreams. The use of apostrophe here adds emotion to what is already a significant event, and we find ourselves wondering how the mother’s side of the conversation will go—whether she’d be upset, supportive, or critical of his decision; whether or not she’d try to persuade Rabbit to stay, and perhaps more importantly, whether he’d be persuaded to stay. He wouldn’t be the first person to turn his back on his dreams due to family commitments, and this scenario (or imagined scenario) adds to the overall drama and tension of the song, as we will Rabbit to go and achieve his ambitions. Slang The word ‘ope’ from line 10 of verse 1 is worthy of exploration, in spite of its brevity. ‘Ope’, which originated in the US ‘Midwest’ ‘is a tiny exclamation of surprise, a word you would use if, say, you accidentally bumped into somebody. As in: “Ope, sorry!”’ (Gutierrez 2017). As Eminem was born ‘in the Kansas City, Missouri suburb of St. Joseph [… and] spent his childhood between Missouri and Michigan [… before] settling in Detroit in his teens’, this could well be an example where Eminem is “outing” himself discursively as white (Alim et  al. 2009: 81) by voicing a phrase used by a community whose vast majority is made up of white people. Yo—a ‘ritual’ within rap that ‘participants in hip-hop across the globe have in common that connects them to each other’ (Emdin 2010: 73) which serves as a dramatic pause before a particularly ‘hard hitting line is recited’ (Emdin 2010: 73). Coming right before Eminem starts rapping, then, it’s suggesting that what’s about to follow is going to be worth listening to, and full attention should be paid to it.

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Choked—Slang term for not being able to perform properly under pressure. In the song, the ‘choking’ leads ‘everybody’ to laugh, so it’s equated to a public humiliation. As such, for Rabbit to bounce back from this and keep going shows his strength of character and makes us root for him. Homie—Slang term for ‘friend’ (Bucholtz 2010: 126) frequently used in hip-hop. Drop bombs—The slang term to ‘drop a bombshell’ refers to saying something unexpected or surprising, but it’s more likely, seeing as the subsequent line refers to what he’s written down, that it refers in this instance to delivering lyrics that are so good they have a devastating affect on the audience (or his rap battle rival). As a term it’s been used frequently in hip-hop over the years, including the Dr. Dre song ‘High Powered’ where Dre says he ‘drop bombs like Hiroshima’ (Dr. Dre. 1992). Hoes—A ‘derivation of the word whore’ (Whalum 2010: 5) which is used frequently as a derogatory term for women in hip-hop. In its usage within ‘Lose Yourself’ it’s seemingly used to refer to women who gravitate towards a man due to his fame and wealth and then reject him in search for someone else with more fame and wealth. Depending on how we feel about the word (and our feelings toward misogynistic words in general) this could actually have the opposite effect of what was intended, and cause us to sympathise with Rabbit (or Eminem) less. Mo’—An abbreviation for the word ‘more’, one which is commonly used in hip hop. With the common hip hop language Eminem is using in this song, he is demonstrating that he is someone who knows and understands the genre and so when he’s rapping about that world, he is authentic to it. This is important to us as the listener as it means he’s a trustworthy character. Schmoe—Meaning ‘sucker’—someone who doesn’t know the full details of a scenario and is likely to be exploited. By prefixing his use of this word with ‘the next’, Eminem is suggesting he (or Rabbit) could also be described in such a way, positioning himself in his familiar role as victim. ‘9-5’—Slang for a full-time job, usually referring to something that’s quite mundane, ordinary, or banal. In this case, it’s a necessarily evil because Rabbit has to earn money, but it’s getting in the way of him pursuing his dreams. Nose-dove—a swift and destructive decline. Nada—Nothing

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Characters ‘Rabbit’: Our protagonist. We know he lives with his mother in a Trailer, that he has a daughter, that he works a ‘9-5’ but has to rely on food stamps which don’t pay for the ‘diapers’ he’s struggling to afford. We know he’s desperate to escape the life he’s living and to achieve something more for both himself and his daughter, but the opportunity to realise it is only available to him this one time. Mekhi Phifer: Only makes sense if we’re aware of the film and know that he plays the character of David ‘Future’ Porter who functions as Rabbit’s best friend/ mentor and is loosely based on Eminem’s real life best friend/ mentor DeShaun ‘Proof’ Holton. This reference both functions in attaching the lyrics to the film, but also moving them away from the character of ‘Rabbit’ to Eminem himself. ‘Rabbit’ did have Mekhi Phifer after all, and when Eminem says that ‘this’ is his life and that it’s not a movie, we then naturally take the utterances that follow it to be coming from his perspective rather than Rabbit’s, until we come back to him living with his mother in a trailer, which is no longer a plausible connection to make with Eminem’s life. Mom: Only mentioned twice, and even then only in passing, but the mother character is a significant presence in the song as she represents the ‘old life’ that is holding Rabbit back. Her presence in the image of ‘Mom’s Spaghetti’ also makes Rabbit more relatable as a character with the line ‘mom’s spaghetti’ line, which a great deal of fans will be able to recognise as something from their own lives. Such an identifiable image so early in the song cleverly allows us to form an attachment with Rabbit and thus care when he ‘chokes’ and appears to have missed his opportunity. The crowd: The people that need to be won over. Symbolic of acceptance in the new world Rabbit’s trying to infiltrate. The daughter: The daughter character provides Rabbit with the incentive he needs to succeed in order to build her a better life but also provides him with feelings of guilt if he comes up short. A lot of the connection we feel with Rabbit, and a lot of the empathy or sympathy we feel for him come via his feelings of responsibility towards his daughter as we want him to succeed, not just for himself, but for her. ‘hoes’: Symbolic of the fair-weather world of celebrity infatuation: when a star is ‘hot’, everyone wants to know them, but when they’re ‘cold product’, they don’t want to know any more and move on to the next ‘schmoe’ who becomes the next big thing.

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‘I’: Depending on how we look at this, it could be Eminem separate from Rabbit as the narrator, or it could be Rabbit himself, who occasionally talks about himself in the third person to inhabit the voice of his detractors. ‘You’: Includes ‘us’ the listener in the song and succeeds in creating a personal connection between us and Eminem, but it could also be seen as Eminem speaking to himself, ‘geeing himself up’. Rhyme Wainwright asserts that rhyme’s ‘first effect is pleasure. It comes from delighted surprise as words, remote from each other in meaning but which happen to sound alike, are made to coincide […] there’s a kind of ‘click’ as this happens, like the neat fastening of a catch or two pieces of a jigsaw’ (Wainwright 2004: 103). Eminem, like most hip-hop artists uses rhyme extensively in his songs, and ‘Lose Yourself’ is no exception. The song is absolutely filled with rhyme. Of its 795 words, there are 178 rhymes, made up of 133 internal rhymes and 45 end rhymes (not including identical rhymes). By way of comparison, 50 Cent’s ‘In Da Club’ which was the only hip hop song to sell more than ‘Lose Yourself’ in 2003 (I’m discounting The Black Eyed Peas’ ‘Where is the Love and R Kelly’s ‘Ignition (Remix)’) contained 52 in its 683 words, 29 of which were internal (the vast majority of which came through the repeated chorus) and 23 end rhymes. The use of end rhymes is pretty consistent between the two songs, but it’s the internal rhymes that show a staggering difference: 16.72% of ‘Lose Yourself’s lyrics are made up of internal rhyme, and 4.25% of ‘In Da Club’. The internal rhyme ‘gives an emphasis to both [or all] the words concerned’ (Guest 2013: 52). In the second verse, Eminem ramps up the frequency of his rhymes and also uses the rhyme sound (the vowel sound ‘oh’) that’s used in much of the chorus, which serves to put us in mind of the song’s hook—thus making it all more memorable, and tying everything back to the main theme of ‘seizing the opportunity’. This ‘oh’ sound can be heard in (I’ve left the repetitions of words in) ‘close’, ‘post’ ‘only’ ‘grows’ ‘homie’ ‘grows’; ‘blows’ ‘all’ (based on his pronunciation) ‘homie’, ‘grows’, ‘blows’ ‘all’ ‘over’, ‘hoes’, ‘all’, ‘coast’, ‘shows’ ‘known’ ‘globetrotter’ ‘lonely’ ‘roads,’ ‘goes’, ‘knows’, ‘own’, ‘nose’, ‘goes’, ‘cold’ (the rhyme of this is dependent on him pronouncing the world cold with the ‘oh’ sound rather than ‘ol’), ‘hoes’ ‘no’ ‘mo’ ‘cold’ and ‘product’ (the latter of which is once

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again reliant on how he pronounces it), ‘schmoe’, ‘flows’, ‘nose’, ‘dove’, ‘sold’, ‘so’, ‘soap’, ‘told’, ‘unfolds’, ‘suppose’ and ‘old’ before finally, the closing line of that verse shifts away from this rhyme type. There are 43 rhymes in the 98-word passage that makes up this section of the verse. The flow and fluidity of it is representative of how quickly things can escalate and become beyond our control, with events moving so fast we can barely draw breath. When the section does come to an end, with the final line of the verse, it’s almost a relief to be freed from such a frantic, intense experience. As Eminem is talking about the world of hip hop and how fast-paced it is, this may symbolise how it would be a relief for him to leave it all behind. Bradley suggests that rhyme ‘works by establishing a habit of expectation in listeners’ minds, conditioning them to identify patterns of sound, to connect words the mind instinctively recognizes as related yet distinct’ (Bradley 2009: 49). ‘Perfect’ rhymes certainly serve this purpose, as they allow us almost to guess what the rhyming word will be before it’s even uttered, and Eminem uses them throughout the song e.g. ‘go’ and ‘blow’, ‘spot’, ‘plot’, ‘shot’, ‘not’, ‘got’ and, ‘Lot’, ‘seed and feed’, and ‘snail’ and ‘jail’. Other rhyme types are not so predictable. Eminem uses assonance rhymes via ‘loud’ and ‘out’, ‘out’ and ‘blaow’, ‘out’ and ‘how’, ‘roads’ and ‘known’, and ‘piper’ and ‘inside’, rhymes about which Pattison says ‘the vowel sounds ring out and connect. However, they do not complete their connection; they leave it hanging’ (Pattison 1991: 48), and Austin Clarke says, in appropriately poetic fashion, they ‘takes the clapper from the bell of rhyme’ (Harmon 1989: 22). Eminem also uses consonance rhymes (also known as ‘half rhymes’, ‘slant rhymes’, or ‘imperfect rhyme) via ‘ropes’ and ‘knows’, ‘harder’ and ‘over’, and ‘changed’ and ‘chewed’, and Bradley notes that such rhymes cause a ‘creative tension’ in the lyrics (Bradley 2009: 58). At various other points in the song, Eminem uses: Family rhyme: e.g. ‘loud’ and ‘out’ or ‘crowd and ‘out’ Additive rhyme: e.g. ‘dope’ and ‘knows’, or ‘ope’ and ‘won’t’, or ‘told’ and ‘unfolds’ Subtractive rhyme: e.g. ‘ropes’ and ‘dope’, or ‘flows’ and ‘told’, or ‘hoes’ and ‘mo’ Plus the homophones ‘father’ and ‘farther’ and ‘knows’ and ‘nose’. Each of these help to achieve rhyme’s main aim of achieving aesthetic satisfaction for the listener, but they also allow Eminem to draw upon a much wider vocabulary than the one he’d have available to him were he to

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use only perfect rhyme. Variety also comes through the different amounts of syllables in the words he’s rhyming. There are plenty of monosyllabic rhymes in the song, such as ‘go and blow’ or ‘shows and knows’, and a number of disyllabic rhymes too, such as ‘gaping and taking’ or ‘nervous and surface’, but it’s with his multisyllabic rhymes, such as ‘reality and gravity’ or ‘superstardom and post-mortem’ that Eminem stretches his poetic muscles. It’s important in such as song that such feats of rhyming acrobatics aren’t just there for the sake of demonstrating is prowess as an MC (like he does in ‘Rap God’ or ‘Godzilla’) so we need to be on the lookout for any words or phrases that ‘take control, leading the poet to unintended and unwanted expressions’ (Bradley 2009: 69). The only real occurrence of this in ‘Lose Yourself’, it could be argued, is the word ‘blaow’ (which is how it’s written on Eminem’s official website), whose purpose in the song seems only to be maintaining the string of monosyllabic rhymes with the song ‘ow’ in them. ‘Rhythm is fundamental to our very existence and to the way we experience life in our bodies. Our bodies work in rhythmic ways: our heartbeat, our breathing, the way walk, run, dance, swim […;] rhythm has physical and mental effects on us which are deeply related aesthetic experience’ (Furniss and Bath 1996: 25). ‘Lose Yourself’ is all about the rhythm of the words against the rhythm of the music. Neil Valentine, Creative Director of the Music Centre at the University of Winchester notes that the rhymes mainly occur via subdivisions of the beat in 1/8 or 1/16 notes (quavers or semi quavers) but the real interest comes in the way he accents off beats and syncopates over the main beats. The accented words are mostly not on the main beat and when there is tension in the lyrics he accents the off beats more. Eminem also frequently uses the poetic technique of enjambment is to create a seemingly never-ending flow of lyrics. One of the most obvious examples of this can be found in the chorus where Eminem raps ‘do not miss your chance to blow/ This opportunity comes once in a lifetime’ (2003). As well as being effective from a rhythmic perspective, such a technique here serves to create a potential dual meaning or tension within the song, depending on how we respond to the meaning of the phrase ‘blow this opportunity’. ‘To Blow’—In Britain, when mentioned in reference to some kind of opportunity, means that said opportunity has been wasted. The more likely meaning, however, is that ‘to blow’ means to become very successful very quickly. So, we could interpret these two lines as they’re intended, as in ‘don’t miss your chance to become a big star/ this opportunity comes once in a lifetime’, or we could hear them as

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‘do not miss your chance to blow this opportunity/ comes once in a lifetime’. The second interpretation fits with Eminem’s distaste with the fickle nature of fame and celebrity that occurs during verse 2, and can be read as him looking back and thinking ‘would my life actually have been better if I had blown (or wasted, if we apply slang familiar to residents of the UK) this opportunity?’ Granted, it would need a bit of a suspension of proper grammar, with the sentence starting with ‘comes’ and missing a subject, but natural speech, such things occur all the time. * * *

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Final Thoughts

In the months since beginning this project, the ‘cancel Eminem’ calls have died down a little, but social media continues to keep the conversation alive. Then again, such conversations have been bubbling away since 2000, albeit without the ‘cancel’ label attached. Eminem addressed the latest calls to censor his output (or, indeed, ‘cancel’ him) in a radio interview with Gray Rizzy in September 2021, saying: ‘“I understand some of this sh*t but for the most part like for people who just sit online and they feel like they need to b*tch about whatever it is just to feel like they’re a part of something or you know what I’m saying. With cancel culture […] no one ever really gets canceled [sic] though. So when people start saying cancel, okay well this rapper’s still here, this rapper’s still here, or this person in general. It’s just, I don’t know man, I feel people need to f**kin grow a pair.”’ (24 × 7 team, 2021) The ‘grow a pair’ comment certainly isn’t going to do Eminem any favours when it comes to conversations about toxic masculinity, but his ever-faithful fans were quick to jump to his defence once again, having hijacked the so-called “cancel campaign” and […] busting out all the usual responses to criticism of their favorite rapper. He’s too famous to be canceled! He revolutionized hip-hop! His lyrics are too deep for you to understand!’ (Rolli, 2021) Whatever our thoughts on the matter, ‘his sales have never faltered […and has thrived on censures from civil rights organizations and boycotts from hysterical parents who considered him a hellspawn. If cancel culture actually exists, Eminem has © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 G. Fosbraey, Reading Eminem, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79626-6

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profited immensely from it.’ (Rolli, 2021) And despite his protestations that he won’t be censored, Eminem has evolved as an artist in recent years. He’s all but retired homophobic slurs (zero on Music to be Murdered by, and one each on Kamikaze and Revival, compared with 17 on The Marshall Mathers LP alone), and the graphic violence towards women from his early output has also been put out to pasture, although the misogynistic words remain. Whether or not we think Eminem’s lyrics are an insight into Marshall Mathers the person, or an artifice created for mass consumption, it’s clear that the character he puts across in his songs is a deeply troubled one, whose childhood experiences continue to haunt and torment him. Certain subjects are revisited again and again in the songs, including his relationships (or lack of) with his mother, father, stepfather(s), Kim, and Hailie, and although his feelings towards some of them have changed or softened over time, and some relationships have been repaired, some issues remain, such as his abandonment issues or inability to trust the women he is in romantic or sexual relationships with. The trauma we discuss earlier in the book has manifested itself in his lyrics throughout his career and, some might argue, has helped shape it. Eminem has shown himself to be a capable actor, but would he have been able to put in a vocal performance such as ‘Kim’ without channelling a real emotion attached to the titular character? And would ‘Stan’ have been as convincing were he not able to tap into the anger and hurt inside himself? Were he to ever shed his past and find some peace in his life, we might find ourselves faced with a totally different Eminem. But, then again, that might be the day he hangs up his mic for good. And who would we debate then?

Appendix: ‘Familiar Signs’

Generic Settings Hospital: (‘Godzilla’, ‘Without me’, ‘Under the Influence’, ‘Still don’t give a fuck’, ‘Going through changes’, ‘Criminal’, ‘When the music stops’, ‘Evil Twin’, ‘We Made You’, ‘W.T.P’, ‘Arose’, ‘My Fault’. Detroit: ‘Quitter’, ‘Amityville’, ‘So Far…’, ‘Cum on Everybody’, ‘Bitch Please II’, ‘8 Mile’, ‘Marshall Mathers’, ‘Marsh’, ‘Yellow Brick Road’, ‘Rock City’, ‘Can I Bitch’ School: (‘My Name is’; ‘Brain Damage’; ‘Just don’t give a fuck’; ‘I’m Shady’, ‘The Kids’, ‘Yellow Brick Road’, ‘As the world turns’, ‘Our House’, ‘Drug Ballad’, ‘Legacy’, ‘Evil Twin’) At home: (‘Brain Damage’, ‘Just don’t give a fuck’, ‘Our House’, ‘Mockingbird’, ‘Going through changes’) McDonald’s: ‘Talkin’ 2 Myself’, ‘Won’t Back Down’, ‘So Far…’, ‘Untouchable’, ‘Framed’, ‘The Kids’, ‘Quitter’, ‘Taking my ball’, ‘3AM’, ‘Right for Me’ Burger King: The Real Slim Shady’, ‘Framed’, ‘The Ringer’, ‘So Far’ White Castle: ‘My Name is’ Denny’s: ‘WTP’ House party: ‘Guilty Conscience’; ‘Drug Ballad’; ‘My Fault’ Nightclub: ‘Role Model’, ‘W.T.P’, ‘Those Kinda Nights’ A liquor store: ‘Guilty Conscience’

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 G. Fosbraey, Reading Eminem, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79626-6

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Trailer park: ‘Guilty Conscience’ Gas Station: ‘If I had’ Laundromat: ‘As the world turns’ Newsstand: ‘Marshall Mathers’ K-Mart: ‘Rhyme or Reason’, ‘Wicked Ways’ Costco: ‘So Far…’ Kroger: ‘So Far…’ Builders Square: “If I Had’ Ramada Inn: ‘As the world turns’

Pop Culture References (Via Celebrities, Historical Figures, Sports Players) The Spice Girls (‘My Name is’) Pamela Lee (‘My Name is’) Kris Kross (‘My Name is’) Mike D (‘Cum on Everybody’) Marty Schottenheimer (‘Just don’t give a fuck’) Mike Tyson (‘Just don’t give a fuck’) Ron Goldman (‘Just don’t give a fuck’) Steve Seagal (‘Bad meets evil’) Sonny Bono (‘Who Knew’) Ricky Martin (‘Marshall Mathers’) Tom Green (‘The Real Slim Shady’) Christina Aguilera (‘The Real Slim Shady’; ‘I’m Back’, ‘Aint Nuttin’ But Music’ (D12)) Justin Timberlake (‘Aint Nuttin’ But Music’, ‘Living Proof’, ‘My first single’) Carson Daly (‘The Real Slim Shady’) Osama Bin Laden (‘Mosh’, ‘We as Americans’, ‘Unaccommodating’) Saddam Hussein (‘Unaccommodating’, ‘Still don’t give a fuck’, ‘Business’) Fred Durst (‘The Real Slim Shady’) Pee-wee Herman (‘Ass like that’) Bill Clinton (‘Remember Me?’, ‘Rap God’, ‘The Re-Up’) Hilary Clinton (‘Role Model’) George W. Bush (‘Mosh’, ‘Rain Man’, ‘Love Me’) Donald Trump (‘Heat’, ‘Offended’)

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Ivanka Trump (‘Framed’) Melania Trump (‘Offended’) Jennifer Lopez (‘I’m Back’) Dick Chaney (‘Without Me’) Lynne Chaney (‘Without Me’) Tipper Gore (‘White America’) Mike Pence (‘The Ringer’) Gabby Giffords (‘Fall’) Chris Kirkpatrick (‘Without Me’) Moby (‘Without Me’) Mischa Barton (‘Taking my ball’) Heidi Klum (‘Taking my ball’, ‘Untouchable’) Michael J. Fox (Won’t back down’) Rosie-o-Donnell (‘Taking my ball’) Angelina Jolie (‘Things get worse’) Brad Pitt (‘Things get worse’) Natasha Bedingfield (‘Things get worse’) Arnold Schwarzaneggar (‘Who Knew’, ‘Ass like that’) Dakota Fanning (‘Things get worse’) Carmen Elektra (‘Things get worse’) Hulk Hogan (‘On Fire’) Brooke Hogan (‘On Fire’) Michael Jackson (‘Just Lose it’, ‘Em calls Paul (Skit), ‘If I die young’, ‘When the music stops’, ‘Paul (Skit) (from Encore), ‘Ass like that’, ‘On Fire’. Jessica Simpson (‘We Made you’, ‘Things get worse’, ‘My First Single’) Nick Lachey (‘My first single’) Kim Kardashian (‘We Made you’, ‘Taking my ball’, ‘3AM’) Lyndsey Lohan (‘We Made you’) Sam Ronson (‘We Made you’) Portia de Rossi (‘We Made you’) Ellen DeGeneres (‘We Made you’) Sara Palin (‘We Made you’, ‘Taking my ball’) John Mayer (‘We Made you’) Jessica Alba (‘We Made you’) Amy Winehouse (‘We Made you’, ‘So Bad’) Blake Fielder-Civil (‘We Made you’) Kevin Federline (‘We Made you’, ‘Not Alike’, ‘Berzerk’) Harry Houdini (‘Taking my ball’)

182 

Appendix: ‘Familiar Signs’

Mariah Carey (’Superman’, ‘When the music stops’, ‘Jimmy crack corn’, ‘Bagpipes from Baghdad’, Cold wind blows’) Marilyn Manson (‘The way I am’) Atilla The Hun (‘Say what you say’) Jenna Jameson (‘Fack’) William Shakespeare (‘Renegade’) Jesus Christ (‘Renegade’, ‘Walk on Water’) Heath Ledger (‘My Mom’) Eric Clapton (‘Bagpipes from Baghdad’) Jeffrey Dahmer (‘Bagpipes from Baghdad’, ‘Must be the Ganja’) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (‘Stay Wide Awake’) Ted Bundy (‘Stay Wide Awake’) Jack The Ripper (‘Must be the Ganja’, ‘Fall’) Abraham Lincoln (‘Almost Famous’) Troy Polamalu (‘Almost Famous’) Brian Baldinger (‘Legacy’) Gwen Stefani (‘Asshole’, ‘Ass like that’) Leonardo Da Vinci (‘Berzerk’) Floyd Mayweather (‘Rap God’) Sugar Ray Robinson (‘Groundhog Day’) LaDainian Tomlinson (‘Groundhog Day’) Dikembe Mutumbo (‘Groundhog Day’) Ndamukong Suh (‘Wicked Ways’) Bruce Willis (‘Believe’) Simon Cowell (‘Chloraseptic’) Dez Bryant (‘Chloraseptic’) Bruce Springsteen (‘Chloraseptic’) General Lee (‘Like Home’) Keanu Reeves (‘Nowhere Fast’) Kim Jong-Un (‘Nowhere Fast’) Tommy Lynn Sells (‘Offended’) Mitch McConnell (‘Offended’) Justin Ross Harris (‘Offended’) Rachel Dolezal (‘Offended’) Ray Rice (‘Offended’) Kellyanne Conway (‘Offended’) The Pope (‘Offended’) Kala Brown (‘The Ringer’) Stephen Paddock (‘Greatest’)

  Appendix: ‘Familiar Signs’ 

183

Tara Reid (‘Kamikaze’) Cher (‘Kamikaze’) Kathy Griffin (‘Fall’) Elvis Presley (‘Fall’, ‘Without Me’, ‘Ricky Ticky Tock’, ‘We Made You’, ‘Déjà vu’) Carmine Coppola (‘Nice Guy’) Vincent Van Gogh (‘Good Guy’) Ayatollah Khomeini (‘Unaccommodating’) John Wayne Gacy (‘Unaccommodating’) Bobby “The Brain” Heenan (‘Godzilla’) Richard Ramirez (‘Godzilla’) Harvey Weinstein (‘Yah Yah’) Bill O’Reilly (‘Yah Yah’) Britney Spears: ‘The Real Slim Shady’, ‘Off the Wall’, ‘My first single’, ‘Evil Twin’, ‘Marshall Mathers’, ‘Ass like that’, ‘Same song and dance’, ‘Aint Nuttin’ But Music’ (D12) Christopher Reeve: ‘Who Knew’, ‘Medicine Ball’, ‘My First Single’, ‘Rain Man’, ‘I’m Back’, ‘Paul (Skit)’ (on Relapse), ‘Underground’, ‘Buffalo Bill’, ‘Purple Pills’ (D12) Steve Berman: ‘Steve Berman (Skit)’ (on The Marshall Mathers LP), ‘Steve Berman (Skit)’ (on The Eminem Show), ‘Steve Berman (Skit)’ (on Relapse), ‘Steve Berman (Skit) (on D12’s Devil’s Night) Paul Rosenberg: ‘Paul (Skit)’ (on The Marshall Mathers LP), Paul Rosenberg (Skit) (on The Eminem Show), ‘Paul (Skit)’ (on Relapse), ‘Paul (Skit)’ (on Kamikaze)

Pop Culture References (Via Fictional Characters) Batman (‘Won’t back down’, ‘Asshole’, ‘Greatest’, ‘Business’) Superman (‘Superman’, ‘Marsh’, ‘You Gon’ Learn’, ‘Love the way you lie’, ‘My first single’, ‘Rain Man’, ‘Medicine Ball’, ‘Evil Twin’, ‘We Made You’, ‘Groundhog Day’) Lex Luthor (‘Rain Man’) The Joker (‘Evil Twin’) Foghorn Leghorn (‘Role Model’) Austin Powers (‘Almost Famous’) Yoda (‘Rhyme or Reason’) Chewbacca (‘Rhyme or Reason’) Jabba the Hutt (‘Stay Wide Awake’)

184 

Appendix: ‘Familiar Signs’

Jawa (‘Stay Wide Awake’) Spiderman (‘Rain Man’, ‘Taking my Ball’) Darth Vader (‘Rain Man’) General Zod (‘Rap God’) Rapunzel (‘Rap God’) Rumpelstiltskin (‘The Monster’) The Incredible Hulk (‘My Name is’, ‘Lock it up’) Jason Vorhees (‘Criminal’; ‘Stay Wide Awake’; ‘Underground’, ‘Things get worse’, ‘Criminal’) Mr. Mackey and Eric Cartman from South Park (‘The Kids’) Norman Bates (‘Love Game’, ‘Role Model’) Donald Duck (‘Framed’) Godzilla (‘Not Alike’, ‘Godzilla’, ‘Groundhog Day’) Speedy Gonzalez (‘Hello’) Hannibal Lecter (‘Medicine Ball’) Michael Myers (‘Underground’) Cinderella (‘Farewell’) Freddy Krueger (‘Underground’, ‘Things get worse’) Edward Scissor Hands (‘Underground’) Triumph the Dog (‘Ass Like that’) Ghost Rider (‘On Fire’) Pepé Le Pew (‘Heat’) Thanos (‘Unaccommodating’) Dirty Harry (‘Under the Influence’) Dennis the Menace (‘Drips’) Dracula (‘Bagpipes from Baghdad’) Don Juan (‘Seduction’) Thor (‘Rap God’) Odin (‘Rap God’) Steve Rodgers (‘Untouchable’)

Pop Culture References (Via Entertainment Media E.g. TV Shows, Bands, Toys, Etc.) Hannah Montana (‘3AM’; ‘Underground’) Teddy Ruxpin (‘Insane’) Rubik’s Cube (‘Drug Ballad’, ‘Walk on Water’) Nightmare on Elm Street (‘Insane’)

  Appendix: ‘Familiar Signs’ 

185

Nickelodeon (‘Same Song and Dance’) Dexter (‘Medicine Ball’) Rolling Stone Magazine (‘Kill You’, ‘Premonition (Intro.)’ N’Sync (‘The Way I am’, ‘Evil Twin’, ‘I’m Back’, ‘Marshall Mathers’) The Backstreet Boys (‘Marshall Mathers’) Limp Bizkit (‘Without Me’, ‘Bitch Please II’, ‘Quitter’) Jerry Springer show (‘Role Model’) TRL (‘White America’) The Silence of The Lambs (‘3AM) Fox News (‘Like Home’) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (‘Kill You’) The Bible (‘Rain Man’) ABBA (‘Bagpipes from Baghdad’) Pussycat Dolls (‘Medicine Ball’) The Wizard of Oz (‘On Fire’) Jaws (‘On Fire’) Gremlins (‘Untitled’) Night of the Living Dead (W.T.P) NASCAR (‘Rap God’) Revenge of the Nerds (‘Groundhog Day’) Nintendo (‘Love the way you lie’, ‘Murder Murder’, ‘So Far’, ‘Unaccommodating ‘) Jodeci (‘Normal’) Ice Road Truckers (‘Godzilla’)

Recurring (Named) Characters (10+ Songs) His mother: ‘My Name is’, ‘My Mom’; ‘Kill You’, ‘I’m Back’, ‘Cleanin’ out my Closet’, ‘Headlights’, ‘Without Me’, ‘Under the Influence’, ‘Stepdad’, ‘Insane’, ‘Evil Deeds’, ‘Criminal’, ‘Never Enough’, ‘Who Knew’, ‘Marshall Mathers’, ‘Yellow Brick Road’, ‘Leaving Heaven’) His father: ‘My Name is’, ‘Kill You’, ‘Rhyme or Reason’, ‘Cleanin’ out my Closet’, ‘Headlights’, ‘Say Goodbye Hollywood’, ‘Evil Deeds’, ‘The Way I Am’, ‘Hailie’s Song’, ‘So Bad’, ‘My Mom’, ‘Arose’, ‘Ricky Ticky Tock’, ‘Leaving Heaven’ Kim: ‘I’m Back’, ‘Kim’, ‘The Real Slim Shady’, ‘Cleanin’ Out My Closet’, ‘Nowhere fast’, ‘Just don’t give a fuck’, ‘Till I collapse’, ‘Bad Husband’, ‘Yellow Brick Road’, ‘When I’m Gone’, ‘Bad Influence’, ‘My

186 

Appendix: ‘Familiar Signs’

First Single’, ‘Criminal’, ‘Crazy in Love’, ‘Love Me’, ‘Taking My Ball’, ‘Soldier’, ‘Say Goodbye Hollywood’, ‘Puke’ Hailie: ‘Hailie’s Song’, ‘My Dad’s gone Crazy’, ‘Doe Ray Me’, ‘When I’m Gone’, ‘Bad Husband’, ‘Castle’, ‘Cleanin’ Out my Closet’, ‘Going Through Changes’, ‘Kim’, ‘Gone Again Pt. 2’, ‘Cocaine’, ‘Superman’, ‘Difficult’, ‘Not Alike’, ‘In Your Head’, ‘Drug Ballad’, ‘It’s Your Time’, ‘Mockingbird’, ‘Remember Me’, ‘Crazy in Love’, ‘Bump Heads’, ‘Diamond Style’, ‘Premonition (Intro)’, ‘Like Toy Soldiers’, ‘Say Goodbye Hollywood’, ‘You’re Never Over’, ‘Evil Deeds’

Historically and Culturally Specific Events (Including Events in His Eminem’s Life That Were Public Knowledge at the Time of Release) USA’s invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 (‘Square Dance’) USA’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 (‘Mosh’) R. Kelly’s alleged sexual relations with a minor (‘My first single’) Britney Spears’s mental illness (‘Evil Twin’) Lauryn Hill’s alleged racist statements (‘Role Model’, ‘Cum on Everybody’) Alleged Nicole Brown and Marcus Allen affair (‘Role Model’) Alleged nuclear weapons threat from North Korea (‘Nowhere Fast’) Rodney King’s death (‘Untouchable’) Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton affair (‘Rap God’, ‘Who Knew’) Sonny Bono’s death (‘Who knew’) Ron Goldman’s death (‘Just don’t give a fuck’) Kurt Cobain’s suicide (‘Cum on Everybody’) Donald Trump’s alleged racism (‘Like Home’) Dr Dre’s alleged assault of Dee Barnes (‘Guilty Conscience’) Proof’s death (‘Talkin’ 2 Myself’, ‘Going through changes’) David Carradine’s death (‘Almost Famous’) Playing ‘Stan’ on stage with Elton John at the 2001 Grammy Awards (‘Business’) Michael Jackson’s alleged sexual relations with minors (‘Just Lose it’ and ‘Ass like that’) Lawsuit from Debbie Mathers (‘Without Me’) Tommie Lee jailed for battering Pamela Anderson Lee (‘The Real Slim Shady’)

  Appendix: ‘Familiar Signs’ 

187

Ariana Grande Manchester concert terror attack (‘Unaccommodating’) 2017 Las Vegas shooting (‘Darkness’, ‘Greatest’) Eminem’s alleged assault of John Guerra (‘Sing for the Moment’ and ‘The Kiss’) Eminem’s alleged affair with Mariah Carey (Superman’, ‘Bagpipes From Baghdad’, and ‘Cold wind blows’) Eminem’s hospitalisation following a drug overdose (‘Déjà vu’, ‘Going through changes’, ‘Arose’) Eminem’s issues with Ja Rule and Murder Inc. (in ‘Toy Soldiers’)

References to His Previous Work ‘Paul’ (Skit) (on Kamikaze) ‘Em Calls Paul’ (Skit) (on Kamikaze) ‘Steve Berman (Skit)’ (on The Marshall Mathers LP) ‘Steve Berman (Skit)’ (on The Eminem Show) ‘Steve Berman (Skit)’ (on Relapse) ‘Not Afraid’: Talking about Relapse ‘Cinderella Man’: Talking about Relapse ‘Bad Guy’: Talking about The Marshall Mathers LP ‘Walk on Water’: Talking about ‘Stan’ ‘Headlights’ Talking about ‘Cleaning Out My Closet’ ‘Greatest’: Talking about Revival ‘Believe’: Refers to ‘Cleanin’ Out My Closet’ ‘Castle’: Refers to Infinite ‘Arose’: Refers to Relapse, Recovery, The Marshall Mathers LP2 ‘The Ringer’: Refers to ‘Stan’ ‘Marsh’: Refers to Kamikaze ‘Premonition (Intro): Referring to Rolling Stone Magazine’s review of Kamikaze ‘Stan’: Refers to recordings with Skam ‘The way I am’: Refers to ‘Guilty Conscience’ ‘Just Lose It’: Refers to 8 Mile film and ‘Just Lose it’ ‘Rhyme or Reason’: Mentions The Marshall Mathers LP ‘Heat’: Refers to Relapse ‘Business’: Refers to Grammy’s performance with Elton John ‘Talkin’ 2 Myself’: Refers to Encore and Relapse

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