Eminem; Lose Yourself

Urban music has started to become very popular and listened to vastly around the world, mostly in the US. There are an endless amount of urban/rap artists and one of the most recognised is Marshall Bruce Mathers III, commonly known as Eminem.

In 2003 Eminem released the single ‘Lose Yourself’, duration 5:36 minutes, as a part of the movie ‘8 Mile’.  It is the first rap song to win The Academy Award for Best Original Song. It was also nominated for five Grammies at the 45^th Grammy Awards in 2003. It has had over 4,000,000 downloads in the US alone and had about 500,000 sales. It was also ranked number 24 on the national charts worldwide. 

There is a range of instruments used in the song; more than one guitar, drums, pianos and a bass which is generated by a keyboard. The opening piano instrumental uses two chords in this order Dm, C, Dm. The effective use of major next to a minor really adds a boast to the over feeling of the song. 

The song has an interesting structure, as it isn’t the usual verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle 8, and chorus. Its structure is more verse, chorus x 2, verse, chorus x 2, verse or middle 8, chorus x 2 and a finishing line which works as a coda. It also has a small introduction with just instruments and speech later said by Eminem. This repeat of chorus builds quite a bit of tension throughout the song. The verse has 16 bars, whereas the chorus has 8 bars.  

Every song that Eminem composes had a very distinctive method. His lyrics are quite poetic. He uses iambic pentameter on some lines, “You better lose yourself in the music, the moment,” but in some sentences he does not. This gives it a distinctive strong use of rhyme. He is very descriptive in this song, which has been written with a very aggressive theme. Although the song is about never giving up, this aggressive tone really emphasises the emotions that are felt when people face knock downs in life. ‘You can do anything you set your mind to man,’ a line said at the end, is an example of the theme. He is really trying to create an image of how many difficulties he faced in life and even from that he learned not to give up. 

There are many techniques he uses which make his song successful and one of them is that he starts strong, describing the feelings of the song directly ‘His palms are sweaty’, and has an even more powerful ending. Throughout the whole song he is telling a story which can be easily picked out and applies to most of his listeners. One of the reasons why his lyrics are so well written is that he writes about the things he can relate to easily. He talks about life experience which makes it easier for him to put things onto paper. His use of powerful sentences, “He’s nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs,” have a really positive impact on the song and help create the image he wants in the listeners’ minds.

The song is also written in second and third person, which makes the song even more interesting for the listeners, as he is directly talking to them. This makes the song personal as well as creating a distinctive wall between the main character, being spoken of in the song, and the listeners. This is quite a clever technique to use as the listeners are being shown a very clear image of the situation in the song as well as getting them involved every now and again.

The lyrical meaning of the song is the reason why this song is one of Eminem’s most famous mainstream songs, other than ‘Slim Shady’. It is one of his best written songs, in my point
of view as it holds a lot of emotion. He uses a very poetic method which a lot of rap artists


lack in the 21^st century, and it is this method that makes his songs very catchy.  

Afsheen Butt

Ref: http://www.copyblogger.com/eminem/

       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminem

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lose_Yourself