#139, "Rock Bottom," Eminem (1999)

150 Favorite Songs: #139, "Rock Bottom," Eminem (1999)

It's almost easier to defend the work of, say, Ted Nugent, who has become a figure of political influence for saying some of the most bigoted things you’re liable to hear a human being utter, than it is to defend the work of Eminem, who always tended to keep his awfulness restricted to the things he says in his songs.

With Nugent, the part of him that was able to drop a blistering guitar solo into "Cat Scratch Fever" can easily be distanced from the part of him that makes him such a vile person—what does one have to do with the other? Eminem, meanwhile, may not have ever been credibly accused of actually doing most of the things that make his songs repulsive, but he put all of that violence and misogyny and homophobia directly into his music. You can throw up the devil horns during “Stranglehold” (note: “Stranglehold” is not on this list, but it could be, like, #151. I’m sorry!) with the justification that the artist and the art are different entities. It's not possible to make that justification with Eminem, who never murdered his wife or drove her into the ocean, because that’s literally what a surprising amount of the the art is. I’m not saying that one is better than the other; I'm just noticing that I'm made more uncomfortable listening to Eminem because he raps about domestic abuse than I am listening to John Lennon, who sang about peace and harmony, but was an actual domestic abuser.

But none of that was on my mind when I found "Rock Bottom." Then, I was an 18 year old college dropout living in a border town with no idea how I'd ever get anywhere close to where I wanted to be. I was dating a girl I didn't feel much connection with because I had just moved across the country and I didn't know many people, and she seemed to like me. I worked for minimum wage at the mall. And I was self-obsessed enough at eighteen that I assumed if I felt that way then, I'd feel that way forever. In other words, I felt a lot like Eminem seemed to in this song, and I probably listened to it a hundred times a week. I hadn't even liked Eminem until I heard it. I knew "My Name Is" and thought it was annoying; I knew "97 Bonnie And Clyde" and thought it was awful.

I didn't really even know that there were rap songs that I—a white suburban kid—could relate to when some guy I worked with played the whole CD in the break room, and "Rock Bottom" came on. Until then, rap was escapist music for me—I could listen to Dr. Dre and enjoy the party, or Ice Cube and enjoy the rage, or even The Roots or Mos Def or someone and try to learn, but Eminem was singing my song. Of course it was all tied up in race and class and that stuff—Eminem was hardly the first guy to rap about being broke—but that was always part of his appeal to people like me. He was white and suburban, just like me. I wrote a bunch of terrible raps after I got the CD. (I destroyed the notebooks many years ago, thank goodness.)

Lyrically, there’s a lot going on in “Rock Bottom” that’s interesting. Eminem has, of course, always been extremely good at rapping, but also bad at using that gift in ways that aren’t self-indulgent. But on “Rock Bottom,” that works better than it would on most songs that followed it, because the feelings he had when he was working minimum wage jobs and struggling to believe he’d ever make anything of his life are feelings that people who aren’t Eminem have also experienced; after he got famous, and he started rapping about how he would prefer fans not ask him for autographs or about being “rich-shamed” for living in a house with an elevator, that all got embarrassing, rather than insightful. Here, though, he free-associates his way through his frustrations in a way that blends reality and fantasy that few artists could pull off. In verse three, my favorite on the track, he starts off rapping about the motivating jealousy he feels—”I want the money, the women, the fortune and fame”—before going on an extended riff about the path he sees to get there (“that means I’m stealing your checkbook and forging your name” flowing through to “holding two glocks / hope your doors got new locks on ‘em / cuz my daughter’s feet ain’t got no shoes or socks on ‘em / and the rings you’re wearing look like they got a few rocks on ‘em / and while you flaunt ‘em I could be taking them to shops to pawn ‘em” until he lyrically teleports himself into a pawn shop in the next line: “I got a couple of rings and a brand new watch, you want ‘em?”). It’s a journey that’s both abstract and concrete, which is something Eminem did a lot—but most of the time, when he did something like that, the extended riff would be about how he hates his wife and wants to kill her, which is such a grim, pathetic waste of talent.

Listening to "Rock Bottom" now, it does sound juvenile, but in a very different way. That’s interesting to realize, because I remember at the time thinking how it seemed like this incredibly honest and insightful song about the frustrations of life. I haven't put it on in a long time, though, and of course it sounds juvenile. I was eighteen when I thought it mattered, and I wasn't particularly mature myself. I hope that I've grown up okay, though, and I'd have to give some credit for that to a song like "Rock Bottom," which made me feel a lot less alone at a time when I really needed that.