The Real Slim Shady

"The Real Slim Shady"
Song

"The Real Slim Shady" is a song by the rapper Eminem, released in 2000. It was the first single off his album The Marshall Mathers LP, also released in that year.

Premise

The song is a parody of manufactured pop songs that were being churned out at the time. It parodies these songs by including features of a typical pop song, a repetitive chrous etc. Most hardcore rap, and general music fans missed the irony, and classed this as a novelty pop song itself rather than a parody of one.

The song was a hit single, becoming Eminem's first chart topper in some countries, and garnering much attention for insulting various celebrities, including:

• Actress Pamela Anderson's alleged abuse at the hands of her ex-husband, rocker Tommy Lee
• Eminem jokingly claims in one line to have murdered Dr. Dre, and that he's locked him in his basement. This was a spin on one of his previous songs, My Name Is where Eminem goes, "And Dr. Dre said..." then Dre comes on and says "Slim Shady, you're a basehead".
• Comedian Tom Green's humping of a deceased moose on TV, and his song Lonely Swedish
• Rapper Will Smith's brand of commercialized and clean rap music
• Eminem also criticizes Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, both similarly commercially-oriented pop singers; Aguilera was angered by his claim that she performed oral sex on Carson Daly, an MTV VJ, and Fred Durst, of the band Limp Bizkit.

The chorus is about the sudden fashion changes caused by Eminem's success: "I'm Slim Shady, yes I'm the real Shady/All you other Slim Shadys are just imitating/So won't the real Slim Shady please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?". The chorus echoes the tagline of the classic TV quiz show To Tell the Truth. (The TV show's signature phrase is ""Will the real ___________ please stand up?")

Music video and awards

The music video features several subplots that follow the song's context. It features cameo appearances by D12, Dr. Dre, Mel-Man and Eminem dressed as Britney Spears while attending the Grammy Awards. A factory can be seen turning young white men into clones of Eminem, with hair dyed platinum blonde, baggy jeans and a plain white T-shirt. This video won the MTV Awards for Best Video and Best Male Video, as well as being a nominee for Best Rap Video, Best Direction, Best Editing and Viewer's Choice. Many fans view it as one of the best videos of Eminem's career.

"The Real Slim Shady" won the 2001 Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance and was later released on Eminem's greatest hits album, Curtain Call: The Hits.

Actress and comedienne Kathy Griffin, who is also known for insulting celebrities in her act[1], appears in the video as an attending nurse in a psychiatric ward. Griffin said during a July 21, 2005, interview on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno that Eminem selected her for the video because fellow rapper Snoop Dogg told him she was "really funny."[2]

Covers and Parodies

Parody songs include:

• The Real Church Lady, a Saturday Night Live parody in "Church Chat" with Dana Carvey
• The Saddam Song, A parody (flash animation) about events surrounding the US build up to the Iraq War. It can be viewed here
• Will The Real Slim Shady Please Shut Up, This song was originally written by Mike Spencer and performed by a female rapper named Emily Ellis, for the US radio station KLUC. A common mistake was that it was performed by Christina Aguilera due to Ellis's similar voice and comments in the song.
• Another song titled "Will The Real Slim Shady Please Shut Up," was performed by Cletus Haus, with the narrator portraying a parody of Eminem himself admitting to his own fame and talentlessness.
• A parody titled "Will the Real Slim Shady Shut the #### Up," has circulated on the internet. The main rapper chides Eminem for his lack of street cred, as well as his roots in Detroit, contrasting with his upbringing in New York City, "where we talk the talk, and then we walk the walk." This parody also intersperses clips of the two parodies entitled "Will The Real Slim Shady Please Shut Up."
• The Real Greg Brady, which was actually written and performed by Barry Williams (Greg Brady from The Brady Bunch) himself.
• The Real Sugar Baby, generally thought to be created with Sailor Moon's Chibiusa in mind.
• The Real Sin Savior, by Christian parody band Apologetix
• This song was featured in "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Angry White Boy Polka" on his album Poodle Hat.
• William Shatner also performed a spoken word cover of the song during the "Where No Fan Has Gone Before" episode of Futurama. In the episode, an appalled Walter Koenig asks "How can you do a spoken word version of a rap song?", prompting Melllvar to exclaim, "He found a way."
• The Real Rahim Jaffer, parodied on the Canadian satirical current affairs show This Hour Has 22 Minutes when Rick Mercer performed a rap based on the Canadian MP having his aide impersonate him on a radio interview due to scheduling conflicts.
• A Song only able to be heard in downloading websites has a song called "The Real Slim Santa"
• Peter Boyles of Denver talk radio station KHOW has referred mockingly to George W. Bush as "The Real Slim Shady," producing clips of Bush's speeches (supporting Senate Immigration bill S. 1348) interspersed with clips from the song. Boyles considers the bill an "amnesty bill", and considers Bush "shady" for denying that it is not.

Trivia

• The Real Slim Shady wasn't on the original copy of The Marshall Mathers LP. Jimmy Iovine wanted Eminem to have a song to introduce the album, similar to the way My Name Is was the first single on The Slim Shady LP. Eminem wrote The Real Slim Shady literally hours before the final copy of the album was due.

Source: VH1's Ultimate Albums: The Marshall Mathers LP

• US Comedian Kathy Griffin starred as a nurse in the film clip.
• The line "we ain't nothing but mammals", refers to the song "The Bad Touch", by The Bloodhound Gang.
• If one starts calling it on the left foot, the chorus of this song can be used as a marching cadence, and you can keep step to it.

External links

• Music video for "The Real Hary Jaynes" on YouTube