‘Same Song and Dance’: The Eminem song inspired by a horror movie
Eminem has always said outrageous things and leaned into the horrorcore subgenre, which exists in the shadows of mainstream hip-hop. He is not only a pioneer of the genre but also the artist who brought it into the spotlight.
Often taking on the voice and role of psychopaths, Eminem as Slim Shady is quite graphic and extremely scary. In fact, some of his lyrics have been so gory and controversial that they caused a backlash. Record sales are all well and good, but even then, without the acceleration of downloads, the real money was in a globe-trotting tour. It would mean Eminem needed to get out on the road and in a big way. He did so with screams, thrills and enough newspaper column inches to make The Beatles blush.
On one occasion, Republican Senator Lynee Cheney described the lyricist as “a rap singer who advocates murder and rape.” The Marshall Mathers LP was met with outrage en masse, especially concerning the lyrical content of the track ‘Kill You’.
In 2001, Cheney told the US Senate, “He talks about murdering and raping his mother. He talks about choking women slowly so he can hear their screams for a long time. He talks about using O.J.’s machete on women, and this is a man who is honoured by the recording industry”.
However, her words fell on deaf ears as the horrorcore, psychotic elements of Slim Shady are what made him so fascinating to people as an alter-ego. Aside from being influenced by older horrorcore-style acts such as the Gravediggaz and the Geto Boys, Eminem has previously disclosed how films inspired him.
On the track ‘Criminal’, the godfather of horrorcore references the infamous film Friday The 13th. Still, the emcee delved deeper into how horror films influenced him for his album Relapse.
During a 2009 interview with The Observer Music Monthly, Eminem revealed that while writing ‘Same Song & Dance’, he had the theme song to Silence of the Lambs on loop in his house. Speaking about his strange fascination with horror and murderers, the Detroit musician unveiled, “I did find myself watching a lot of documentaries on serial killers. I mean, I always had a thing for them. Oh, that’s not twisted in itself at all, right? I’ve always been intrigued by them and watching movies like that, and I found that going back through my DVD collection and watching movies about killers sparked something in me!”
He continued, “The way a serial killer’s mind works, just the psychology of them, is pretty f*cking crazy. I was definitely inspired by that, but most of that imagery came from my own mind. I did everything I could to relapse into the old me. When you relapse, you go into your old ways harder than before.”