The meaningless Eminem song he called “stupid white trash”
In 1999, Eminem wanted to shock people. The Slim Shady LP did just that, calculatingly blending sensationalism and wit to depict the absurd and sell millions of copies in the process. The album pushed Marshall Mathers into the mainstream as an antihero wildly popular among high school students and massively feared by parents thanks to his controversial lyrics and reckless sense of humour.
The guise of ‘Slim Shady,’ the alter-ego he crafted for himself, serves as the persona through most of the album’s tracks. Through the nasal whine and caustic attitude of Shady, he portrays cartoonish violence that breaks the laws of physics. While the tone is sometimes used to tackle Eminem’s issues with poverty and childhood bullying, most of the tracks are mindless attempts to provoke. No song possibly encapsulates this more than ‘As the World Turns’.
Eminem raps entirely as Slim Shady and spins an outrageous and impulsive story about “stereotypical white trash.” His upbringing fits the authentically white trash demeanour and stereotype, and it’s a theme that, as well as his own relationship with his race, he touched on often during the album and throughout his career. While problematic by the standards of its era, and even more so in today’s landscape, the song features several thoughtlessly funny one-liners and surreal stories.
“It’s just a stupid fucking animated story about stereotypical white trash,” he told Q Magazine. “It’s about being a trashy kid growing up with no morals and no fucking values. Every day is the same, the world keeps turnin’, and I wanna get off this motherfucker. There’s not even a meaning in that song. Not all songs have to have meanings to ‘em. It’s just funny, y’know? Laugh.”
The first verse depicts a high school Eminem aggressively causing mischief, taunting back at classmates who call him a “thizz head”, which is slang for an ecstasy junkie. He gets his own back in a typical Slim Shady manner when the verse ends with an image of him throwing a classmate off a swimming pool diving board.
The white trash theme, alluding to poor white Americans and their stereotypes, persists throughout the song and in the second verse, he raps: “I’d like to treat you to a Faygo and a slice of pizza. But I’m broke as fuck and I don’t get paid ’til the first of next month. But if you’d care to join me, I was about to roll this next blunt. But I ain’t got no weed, no Phillies or no papers.”
The lyric refers to Social Security and welfare incomes – an average label for poor white Americans – where the cheques don’t arrive until the 1st and 15th day of each month. Faygo is also a cheaper Michigan brand of soda. Possibly, the song’s most memorable line comes near the end of the second verse with: “Just tryna buy me some time then I remembered this magic trick. Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh, go-go gadget dick.”
While the song is, in his own words, “stupid” and without meaning, the lyrics are classic Eminem. The storytelling is as equally creative as it is gross, and the words are funny and weird from start to finish. Foolish, yes, but it serves as a perfect example of the instinctively narrative aspects of Eminem’s early work and how his natural flow and humour captured millions of fans.