Lose Yourself

Album

8 Mile: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture

Label

Shady Records

Genre

Stage & Screen

Composer(s)

Marshall Mathers;Jeff Bass;Luis Resto

Entered Chart

Oct 5, 2002

Peak Date

Nov 9, 2002

Released

October 28, 2002

Recorded

September 2001–2002 Studio 54 Sound Studio (Detroit, Michigan)

Catalog #

Shady 497815

B-Side

N/A

This song is featured in Eminem's first movie, 8 Mile. The movie is loosely based on Eminem's life; he grew up in a poor Detroit neighborhood and followed his dream of rap stardom. The movie got very good reviews as Eminem turned out to be a surprisingly good actor. With "Lose Yourself," Eminem had to figure out a way to authentically express himself under the guise of a fictional character. "Because the movie is not me, the movie is Jimmy Smith Jr. So I'm playing this character, but I have to make parallels between my life and his, in this song. I gotta figure out how to reach a medium. It would sound so corny if I was just rapping as Jimmy Smith Jr. How is that going to come from a real place?" he explained on Genius. "If I'm telling you that my daughter doesn't have diapers, I need this amount of money to pay my bills this month, and it's some real s--t I'm telling you, then you know that it's just coming from me. That was the trick I had to figure out - how to make the rhyme sound like him, and then morph into me somehow, so you see the parallels between his struggles and mine." On the movie set, Eminem had a trailer where he could record songs for the movie during breaks in filming. He wrote this in character as B. Rabbit, who he played in 8 Mile. Writing in character was nothing new for Eminem, as he had previously written songs as his alter ego, Slim Shady. The track had been around for over a year before Eminem pulled it off a CD and decided to work off the beat. He had his musicians mold the beat around his vocals. This song is highly produced and heavily layered. In addition to several vocal tracks, there are horns, woodwinds, strings, keyboards, drums, and sound effects all over the track. When the movie studio released the first trailers, this song did not exist, so they used "Cleanin Out My Closet," which the studio wanted to feature in the movie. Eminem thought that song was too personal for the movie, which was one reason he was so determined to write something that fit the character. The 8 Mile soundtrack was part of a very successful run for Eminem. While overall album sales were declining due to high CD prices and Internet piracy, this soundtrack and Eminem's album The Eminem Show were selling millions of copies. Rapper 50 Cent, who also appeared on the soundtrack, was the next big music success story. He also sold millions of albums after signing a deal with Eminem and Dr. Dre's Shady/Aftermath Records and releasing Get Rich or Die Tryin'. Oh, and the movie went to #1 at the box office, eventually taking in over $240 million. For a week in November Eminem had both the #1 movie and song, a feat previously accomplished only by Prince, who did it with Purple Rain and "When Doves Cry" in 1984. Eminem performed this at the 2003 Grammy Awards with The Roots backing him up. He won the Best Rap Album award that year for The Eminem Show. It was the only rap or R&B award presented during the telecast, as the other awards in those categories were given out before they went on the air. This didn't go over well in the rap community, especially since the award for Best Comedy Album (won by Robin Williams) was given out during the show. This won an Oscar for Best Song From A Movie, beating out songs by Paul Simon and U2. It was a bold choice for the academy, who usually pick fairly tame songs by Randy Newman, Sting, or Elton John. Barbra Streisand announced the award, and seemed surprised and happy that Eminem won. Eminem did not perform at the Oscars or show up to accept his award because they wanted him to sing the "radio friendly" version and he wanted to sing the song as written and let the censors edit the language. It was the first winning song not performed on The Oscars since it has been televised. Luis Resto, who co-produced the track, accepted the award in Em's stead. >> Unlike most rap songs, this uses a guitar playing power chords. >> The line, "Best believe somebody's paying the pied piper" is a reference to traditional German story The Pied Piper of Hamelin. The piper was hired to help the village with their rat problem. When they didn't pay, he left with the town's children. Mekhi Phifer, who is mentioned in the lyrics, is an actor who starred with Eminem in the movie 8 Mile. >> Weird Al Yankovic did a parody of this called "Couch Potato" on his album Poodle Hat, his first album in four years. Eminem let him do the song, but wouldn't let Weird Al make a video for it or release it as a single because he was worried about his image. Al thought this was odd considering how much Eminem makes fun of people in his videos. The parody makes fun of people who watch too much TV. This won a Grammy for Best Rap Song of 2003. With a 12-week run at #1 on the Hot 100, this song is the most commercially successful Oscar-winning tune. In 2015, a Washington D.C. judge quoted from this song in passing sentence. Twenty-year-old twins Christopher and Christina Lucas were convicted by a jury of a horrific unprovoked 2013 attack on a man in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, apparently because he was homosexual. Prosecutors asked for 15 years, but Superior Court Judge Yvonne Williams told the pair: "It's like, you only get one shot. And his one shot is that he had to - you know, it's in the movie 8 Mile... the rap has to be so good. You only get one shot." Williams called it "the most inspirational song." She sentenced them each to a year in jail under the Youth Act. Shortly after their release, they were back behind bars, Christopher Lucas for making verbal threats, and his sister for obstructing his arrest. >> New Zealand's National Party were found guilty on October 24, 2017 of ripping off this song in a TV election ad entitled "Eminem Esque." A High Court judge in the country ordered the party to pay $600,000 (£314,000) plus interest to the rapper's publisher. The commercial was run 186 times in the party's 2014 election campaign and can be found here. Em's anecdote about barfing up his mom's spaghetti turned into copypasta (yes, really), a type of bait-and-switch meme that begins under the guise of a personal story but leads into song lyrics or another joke ending. The "Lose Yourself" meme originated in the early 2000s in the 4chan community, where a user would start detailing an awkward experience only to drop the lyrics: Palms are sweaty Knees weak, arms are heavy Vomit on my sweater already Mom's spaghetti Oodles of image-based gags followed that Photoshopped platefuls of pasta into photos of the rapper. The meme went mainstream when YouTuber Jay's Green Stuff created a video of Em singing almost entirely about mom's spaghetti. Eminem made a surprise appearance at the Oscars in 2020, performing "Lose Yourself" to cap off a tribute to songs that have become associated with movies. Backed by an orchestra, he sang the original lyric and was censored repeatedly. After the performance, he tweeted: "Look, if you had another shot, another opportunity... Thanks for having me @TheAcademy. Sorry it took me 18 years to get here." The image of Em barfing up his mom's spaghetti is rather unappetizing, but it launched a brand controlled by the rapper. In 2017, Eminem opened a pop-up restaurant called Mom's Spaghetti at the Detroit music club The Shelter; the following year it was sold at festivals he played. In 2020, servings were delivered to frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. On September 29, 2021, Eminem showed up for the grand opening of the Mom's Spaghetti restaurant in downtown Detroit, serving fans who had been waiting in line for hours. It's far from gourmet: The spaghetti is cooked the day before, then reheated so it tastes like leftovers; the sauce is from scratch but made to taste like it comes from a jar. An Eminem merch shop opened upstairs. Eminem performed this at the Super Bowl halftime show in 2022, joined by Dr. Dre, along with Anderson .Paak on drums. After his set, he took a knee in support of Colin Kaepernick's famous protest.

Yo, if you could just, for one minute
Or one split second in time, forget everything
Everything that bothers you, or your problems
Everything, and follow me

If I was frozen inside of a moment
If I could capture time inside a capsule
An hourglass full of sand in the palm of my hand, it passes through it
If I can grasp it, and just control what happens to it
Then I can trap it, so no more time elapses through it
If raps could do it, maybe I could tap into it
Then I could try to channel it through Cadillacs and Buicks
To transmit through 'em, to make you put your ass into it
And that's when you hit the roof because you can't sit through it
Your passions too much for you to not to be dancing to it
And as you do it, your movements become fast and fluent
You're mashin' to it, moshing until you're black and bluish
And shit you're acting foolish, this music it has influenced you to be rowdy but in an orderly fashion
True it's chaotic, but it's got your body moving as a unit
Uniting together tonight, so make it last and you better just

Lose yourself in this music, this moment we own it
We won't never let it go (go), you better move yourself
Because tomorrow's ass can wait
There is no time, to sit there and procrastinate
Lose yourself in this music, this moment we own it
We won't never let it go (go), you better move yourself
Because tomorrow's ass can wait
There is no time, to sit there and procrastinate

'Cause when we descend together, we begin to move as one
In perfect unison just like the moon and sun
Illuminate the room and humans soon become aluminum
Rhythmically in sync, if you'll excuse the pun
But if you could lose it once, I mean if you could let shit go
Relax, take a breath, and just let it exit slow
Then rest your soul
You could leave the rest to me, if I could give the world a hit of ecstasy
To make 'em feel the feeling I'm feeling right this minute
'Cause I feel like the night won't end til I get finished
So close the shades, makin' sure no light gets in it
The skies the limit tonight because the night's infinite
A high percentage, of black people and white mixed in it
But no one really gives a fuck because they just like what's spinnin'
His life was spinnin', the whole entire night just spinnin'
Like life's beginning so come out from inside your skin and quit hidin' in it

Lose yourself in this music, this moment we own it
We won't never let it go (go), you better move yourself
Because tomorrow's ass can wait
There is no time, to sit there and procrastinate
Lose yourself in this music, this moment we own it
We won't never let it go (go), you better move yourself
Because tomorrow's ass can wait
There is no time, to sit there and procrastinate