Eminem: Beautiful
Posted May 14th, 2010
Yes, my web site is called “Practice Love” and I am featuring a song by Eminem. I feel that this one will require some explanation, so I have prepared my case below, and the song, “Beautiful,” is embedded at the end.
The general public seems to regard Eminem as an angry, hateful, ignorant psychopath. Anyone who holds this view has obviously never studied his full body of work, and likely formed their opinion based on sensationalist headlines from the mainstream media. I intend to show that in fact he is an intelligent, self-aware, talented but misunderstood artist. And he does have Love in his heart.
Talent
Marshall Mathers (stage name: Eminem) is in my opinion one of the greatest lyricists ever. In the song “Rabbit Run,” he declares:
Want me to flip it? I can rip it any style you want.
…and it’s the truth. I have never heard such a breadth of styles (within the hip-hop format) from one artist. He’s done an entire song in baby-talk, speaking to his infant daughter ( “‘97 Bonnie & Clyde” ) and often does entire songs in specific intricate syncopated beats ( “The Way I Am”, “Cleaning Out My Closet” ). He’s done one where the whole song is a conversation between a man and his conscience (played by Dr. Dre in “Guilty Conscience”). Perhaps most impressive is his ability to develop multiple-syllable rhyming patterns and keep them going through an entire verse, combined with his utterly unique delivery style. Example from ( “Lose Yourself” ):
Snap back to reality
Oh \ there GOES gravity
Oh \ there GOES Rabbit he
Choked \ he’s SO mad but he
Won’t \ give UP that easy
Nope \ he WON’T have it he
Knows \ his WHOLE back’s to these
Ropes \ it DON’T matter he’s
Dope \ he KNOWS that but he’s
Broke \ he’s SO sad that he
Knows \ when he GOES back to this
Mo- \ -bile HOME that’s when it’s
(Back \ to the lab again)
Yo \ this WHOLE rap s**t he
(better go capture this moment and)
Hope \ it DON’T pass him
Love
Okay, so he’s talented. But is he respectable? I argue yes. Sure, he has rapped about violent things, such as killing his wife, or wishing his mother to “burn in hell”. There are two reasons why this doesn’t phase me:
The Persona
1) People take his words much too seriously. People think that he’s speaking literally and simply, which is not the case. In fact, Marshall Mathers is extremely intelligent, and has a depth to his expression that many will never appreciate. He’s very self-aware, and half of the things he says are fabrications of the stage persona. From “Sing for the Moment”:
Now you probably get this picture from my public persona
that I’m a pistol-packing drug addict, who bags on his mama.
But I wanna just take this time out to be perfectly honest…
Elsewhere in the song:
It’s all political,
if my music was literal,
and I’m a criminal,
how the f*** could I raise a little girl?
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be fit to.
He understands what the masses’ misconceptions of him are, and pokes fun at the whole thing in “Role Model”:
Okay, I’m going to attempt to drown myself. You can try this at home. You can be just like me.
If you don’t understand that as being tongue-in-cheek, check again. Later in the song:
Some people only see that I’m white, ignoring skill,
cause I stand out, like a green hat with an orange bill,
but I don’t get pissed,
y’all don’t even see through the mist.
How the f*** can I be white?
I don’t even exist.
“I don’t even exist,” means the stage persona, Eminem, is a character invented for entertainment purposes. If you hate Mr. Mathers for inventing this character, do you also hate Stephen King for inventing the characters in his books designed to scare you for entertainment purposes?
The Legitimately Troubled Man Behind the Persona
2) Marshall Mathers never actually killed his wife or did any of those terrible things. What he did was to cathartically express his inner anger about his life. We all have anger, and some never let it out — the “ticking time bomb” scenario, which is all too common today. I think it’s healthy to express anger, when it comes up, in a non-destructive way. In Em’s own words ( “Sing for the Moment” ):
But music is reflection of self–
we just explain it,
and then we get our checks in the mail,
it’s f***d up ain’t it?
So he’s expressing what’s inside. And if you listen to the full body of work, you realize that he in fact has a lot to be angry about. For example, from “Cleaning Out My Closet”:
…goin’ through public housing systems,
victim of Munchausen syndrome —
My whole life I was made to believe I was sick when I wasn’t…
There’s more in other songs, and some of it is even more disturbing. But I say, keep at it, Marshall. Keep cleaning out your closet if it helps to get the past off your chest (and entertain us with your word wizardry as you do). From “Medicine Ball”:
I guess it’s time
For you to hate me again.
Let’s begin,
now hand me the pen…
The world is just my medicine ball, you’re all in
The “Medicine Ball,” meaning that this expression of intentionally controversial material is his catharsis, his release, his medicine.
Beautiful
So for a song to highlight I chose “Beautiful.” This is on the most recent album, “Relapse.” It’s the only song on the album that Marshall produced completely by himself — Dr. Dre was producer or co-producer on all the rest. So I look at it as his most personal statement on the album. It’s about his troubles feeling like a normal person while being famous. It’s about walking a thousand miles in each other’s shoes. It’s about how we all have pain inside sometimes. It’s about how we’re all beautiful.
You’d have to walk a thousand miles
In my shoes
just to see
what it’s like
to be me
I’ll be you
let’s trade shoes
just to see what it’d be like to
feel your pain,
you feel mine
go inside
each other’s minds
just to see
what we find
look at s**t throuh each other’s eyes.
Warning: explicit lyrics. Don’t press play if “bad words” offend you.
There’s a beautiful message in there somewhere. Of course, he’s got to say it with the classic Eminem ‘hard-edged’ twist:
Don’t let them say you aren’t beautiful.
They can all get f***d, just stay true to you.
If you’re interested in more of the softer/introspective/inspirational side of Eminem, check out: Hailey’s Song, Mockingbird, Lose Yourself, Sing For The Moment.