Song 4: My Name Is

My Name Is - Eminem
Pop quiz, kids. Who said this about whom?

"He has created a sense of what is possible. He has sent a voltage around his generation. He has done this not just through his subversive attitude but also through his verbal energy".

Well, you'd have to be a little off the pace not to surmise that the subject is Marshall Mathers himself, but perhaps you'd be a little impressed/perplexed to know that it was Nobel Laureate and Greatest Living Poet Seamus Heaney who said it. Seamus Heaney thought Eminem was good. That's worth something. I thought Eminem was good too. So did quite a few people.

It's easy to forget now how monumentally massive and potentially iconic Eminem was for a wee while. I mean, obviously, he's still a huge star, he's sold 100 million records, he's still instantly recognisable, but he has now become just another famous rapper, not the new Elvis and Bob Dylan and Anti-Christ rolled into one, which he really was touted as for a while.

It seems that is his own doing more than anything else - he retreated, became a recluse, took a big old break from everything, and came back in 2009 to significant success but a whole different level of renown. Now, those five years were, by all accounts, a pretty dark time, involving addiction, depression, tragedy and what not, but nevertheless, fair play to him for escaping the madness in the way that forebears such as Elvis, Michael Jackson etc were never able to do.

Elvis? Michael Jackson? Eminem? Really? Well, yes, again, I don't think it's an unreasonable comparison.  He was that big. He is that significant.

'My Name Is' was the first I heard of Eminem, as it probably was for most people, certainly in the UK. I heard it while in my bedroom in St Andrews in second year, on a weekday winter afternoon being played by Kevin Greening, who I remember talking it up and preparing listeners for something a bit special [the late Kevin Greening was, of course, gay, which is of a little significance bearing in mind both the provenance of the song and the controversy which would dog Eminem's career].

The main thing I noticed, the first time I heard it, was the self-mockery, the humour, the pop-culture references, which were so striking and endearing I failed to notice that it was still, by most standards, pretty offensive filth! And it could, of course, have been even worse. It was originally far more offensive but when Eminem and Dr Dre approached Labi Siffre to clear the key sample from his 'I Got The' (I talked about this a little in a previous post 'Magic moments' - keep up pop fans), the black, gay Siffre responded "attacking two of the usual suspects, women and gays, is lazy writing.If you want to do battle, attack the aggressors, not the victims" so Eminem went away and rewrote the verses and Siffre cleared it.

Now, I make no excuses, in these posts, for making the stories about me as much as about the songs (I can sustain a reasonable amount of wordage with my geeky quizzy "connections" thing, but not being musical enough or really confident in my literary criticism, I daren't go too far into unpicking the bones of these songs), so I'll mention again that Labi Siffre, as well as writing 'It Must Be Love', went to the same school I did from the age of 4 to 8, St Benedict's Ealing, which i have hinted at darkly a couple of times. I had a lucky escape from there, as I hope Mr Siffre did - as reported in the national press, while I was there and before and after, it was not a place for women, gay people, boys, or anyone else, it was a place for some very bad monks who did some very bad things. Now, I don't know all that much about Labi Siffre and I don't know what St Benedict's was like when was there, but if school experience turned him, in any way, into the crusading figure he clearly is who stood up against bullies and bigotry, then rather remarkable to think it might have had an effect on one of the biggest rap songs of all time.

I suspect little Marshall Mathers stood up against a fair bit of bullying and bigotry himself in his time. I confess I was shocked and disappointed when I first saw the Eminem who was behind this little masterpiece [rather as I had been when I'd first seen the Steve Miller who was behind a song I'd briefly thought the coolest thing of all time 'The Joker', expecting some elegant black dude rather than some hairy, middle-aged white fellow]. I was as bigoted, in that moment, as anyone else. White men can't jump. White men can't rap.

Turns out he could. Now, my interest in hip-hop has always been moderate compared to some things, I own a fair bit but I'll always hold it at arm's length, but i will say that, though some might say Rakim or Chuck D, Ghostface Killah or Tupac, Jay-Z or Nas, Eminem is the best rapper I've ever heard, both in terms of content or style. It's only occasional in popular music that you hear" something which you think is utterly incredible, have a genuine sense of "How the hell did they do that?", especially one now knows the full extent of studio wizardry, but along with Jeff Buckley and Marvin Gaye singing, Mark Knopfler playing guitar (I know, embarrassing, but really, I was dazzled by his headbandy skills when i was younger), 60s Dylan, Eminem's wordsmithery on the likes of 'The Way I Am' and 'Lose Yourself' really did blow my mind.

I remember speaking to an actual 60s Bob Dylan fan and he said their reaction at the time was exactly the same - "How did he learn to do that?" "Where did he get so wise?" which I entirely understand about Bob though lose a little all these years later. Bob, for all his wisdom, could be a prize offensive prick at times and really not give a shit about it, and so, of course, could Eminem.

Not too sure how I feel about that. As far as I know, Eminem's supposed misogyny and homophobia is entirely contained within his music, within Marshall Mathers' two alter egos , Eminem and Slim Shady, just as Ricky Gervais's is contained within his alter ego, Ricky Gervais. It is a tightrope, and I rather admire the bravery of living there in a way that I never could - art and public figures do have consequences and responsibilites, but I have no idea if Eminem is a horrible person who thinks horrible things and is a bully. I suspect not. Therefore, if you're offended by it, you have the right to be, but he has the right to create what is offensive to you.

I love Quentin Tarantino and his work has never, as such, offended me, but I did feel, towards the end of 'Inglourious Basterds', a sense of wilful misanthropy and hopelessness, glorification of the horribleness of it all, which i think he could have lightened with a little more humanity. While the humanity's there, the sense of real person who's given their art some thought, I think anything is fair game.

Honestly, I really do get offended by the likes of Amanda Platell, Nigel Farage, Kelvin McKenzie, Bill O'Reilly, to the extent I have to turn off and quench my rage and disgust - that happens to me all the time, yet apart from when a certain storm blows up (like the Jan Moir Steven Gately thing) these arseholes get away with it in the way that the likes of Gervais, Tarantino and Eminem never do.

I would very happily listen to a grossly offensive song about what Slim Shady would like to do to Kelvin McKenzie. Can this be arranged?