♫ Just gonna stand there and watch me burn ♫
♫ That’s alright because I like the way it hurts ♫
♫ Just gonna stand there and hear me cry ♫
♫ That’s alright because I love the way you lie ♫
I bumped into this song in a very interesting way. I was having a chat with a very special person, who just happens to be an ex Mr 3CB. We have the same taste in music, so he’s always sending me songs and stuff. Today, he sent me three suggestions. The second song was Beautiful from Relapse, and the third was a song about nonpoints and bullets which made me giggle for a really long time, though I’m still not sure why. I didn’t much like the Relapse song. Too much jazz. But I’ve been playing this one non-stop. The count is at 55.
At first, I wasn’t sure just what I liked. I’ve had the song on my iTunes for months, but I didn’t pay much attention. I mean really … Eminem featuring Rihanna? How now? I glanced at the song info and skipped it more than once. It took Sailor to make me sit up and listen, and only because he has good taste.
When I heard Rihanna whining in the beginning, I was like wtf? But then her voice dies off suddenly and I’m like hmm, this could be interesting. When the beat began, I thought, ‘Hmm, catchy’. Then I started to listen to the words and I was gone. First, it has Em’s trademark rhyming. I just love the way he uses enjambment. Or, maybe it was caesura.
[Disclaimer: I had to Google that one. I know the technique from Mr Murimi and Lit 101, but I couldn’t remember the terms. I suck at details.]
Enjambment is when you stop a sentence in poetry [or rap] partway, to create rhyme and rhythm. Caesura is when you do the same with sound. I think.
♫ High off of love, drunk from my hate ♫
♫ It’s like I’m huffing pain and I love it the more I suffer, I suffocate ♫
♫ And right before I’m about to drown, she resuscitates ♫
♫ me. She fucking hates me and I love it. Wait! ♫
♫ Where you going? ‘I’m leaving you.’ No you ain’t ♫
♫ Come back we’re running right back. Here we go again. ♫
I just love the way he rhymes words that don’t rhyme. I like the tricky word play and the little puns you have to scrutinize to get. Stuff like huffing pain[t].
Of course it helps that the subject is deep, and that it’s handled so uniquely. It helps a lot more that the instrumentals are so awesome. I did more than my fair share of air strings – or whatevere it is they’re using to get the basso profundo. Is that what it was called? That effect where there’s a constant droning bass line? It might have been basso ostinato, I forget.
Anyway, this song clearly moved me. I tweeted about it for well over an hour, and I’m still OCD-ing as we speak. There’s something magical about the way some songs grab me, shake me, and won’t let me go. I’m just a little concerned that lately, a large number are done by Eminem.
There’s a part 2 to this song and I hunted it down on Twitter. It’s not as good as the original, though Em’s verse is amazing, and the song has some pretty serious drums. I thought about it more, whether this is really love, this furious, angstious dependency. It’s powerful and unhealthy, but you can’t deny its passion. I don’t think I want a ‘love’ like that. It makes you feel alive, but it can kill you too.
Either way, I’d still like to buy Marshall tea and pick that brain of his. As long as he doesn’t go Mariah on me. I’m just saying.