Favorites: If I Had by Eminem

Hip hop and rap might be the things of boasting and show offs, yet ironically, it's usually the music that comes from a place of desperation and being totally fed up that really connects with people. Just think of the Beastie Boys, circa License to Ill: it's just three young kids sick of school, and sick of suburbia and just generally sick of being three kids doing hip hop and not getting anywhere. And here, with If I Had, we find a pre-fame Eminem more fed up than he'd ever have reason to be again. 

Just looking at a lyrics sheet for If I Had always makes me think of Bob Dylan. Dylan was the street poet of the sixties: a master word smith who spun his tales in the name of the counter culture. Eminem was the street poet of the 90s: he combined the part bravado, part vulnerability of rap at the time and used it to ride the zeitgeist of the impending millennium. The song conjures up the image of some skinny kid spitting lines on a street corner, pretending his two friends and some random guy, the only three people who are listening, are a sold out arena.

I was only a child at the time when this song was coming out, so I can't really comment on whether there really was a mystical aura in the air. Films like American Beauty and Fight Club would have you believe it, and the general quality of the culture that brought us films just like them would have you believe it as well; that maybe in the back of everybody's mind they really did fear the world would end as the clock struck twelve, and that if you were going to change, or make something of yourself, or to quote Eminem himself, take your 'one shot', then now was the time to do it.

Lines like 'I'm tired of wanting to be him' have such resonance whatever context you put them in, but even more when put into the culture of self improvement and making big changes before it's too late. There's a big range of things Eminem touches on here but things work best when he focuses on the smaller more personal details: 'I'm tired of wearing the same damn Nike Air hat'. These lines have such a want and an envy; it's asking for a lot without sounding entitled. I can't imagine anyone wouldn't relate to the feeling inside this song, of wanting something so bad, and so huge that it encapsulates your whole life, that it quite literally hurts. It's a feeling for looking out into the empty night sky and contemplating.

Most think of Eminem as either murderously angry or spitting on your onion rings style silly, yet If I Had is more restrained. It is smooth and laid back, which makes sense since it has all of life to contemplate. Em isn't as grisly as most give him credit for, his message has always been positive; even back on his debut album Infinite and his biggest hit Lose Yourself. If I Had has a real struggle inside it; it's Eminem rapping from a real place that a few years later - after he'd took his 'one shot' and saw it pay off - would be unavailable to him. And we can only thank god he got it down and recorded while he had the chance.