Stan (song)
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| "Stan" | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Single by Eminem | ||
| from the album The Marshall Mathers LP | ||
| Released | 2000 | |
| Format | CD | |
| Genre | Hip hop | |
| Length | 6 min 43 s | |
| Label | Aftermath/Interscope | |
| Producer(s) | The 45 King | |
| Chart positions | ||
| Eminem singles chronology | ||
| "The Way I Am" (2000) |
"Stan" (2000) |
"Without Me" (2002) |
| Dido singles chronology | ||
| "Stan" (2000) |
"Here With Me" (2001) |
|
"Stan" was the third and final single (after "The Real Slim Shady" and "The Way I Am") released from The Marshall Mathers LP, the second LP from rapper Eminem. The song is perhaps Eminem's most critically-acclaimed song and has been called a 'cultural milestone'.[1] It is also included on Curtain Call: The Hits, performed with Elton John. It is a haunting story of a fan who writes to Eminem but doesn't receive a swift reply. Unhinged already, the fan (Stan) drives his car off a bridge with his pregnant girlfriend in the trunk. The first three verses are delivered by Stan, with the third being spoken as he is about to drive off a bridge and is recording a cassette to send to Eminem. The fourth verse is Eminem responding to Stan, only realizing at the last second that he has heard about Stan's death as he was writing to him.
The song can also be interpreted as a hit back at Eminem's critics, who accuse him of promoting drugs and violence, because it creates a scenario that clearly shows that his rap lyrics are not meant to be taken literally, "what's this shit you said about you like to cut your wrists too? I say that shit just clownin dogg, c'mon - how fucked up is you?" This theme is repeated throughout his music.
The song was produced by The 45 King and samples "Thank You" by Dido as the chorus.
[edit] Lyrics
- The song begins with Dido singing "Thank You". It is widely misperceived that this portion is the chorus of "Thank You", but it is actually the first verse. The lyrics to Dido's part are; "My tea's gone cold I'm wondering why I got out of bed at all, the morning rain clouds up my window, and I can't see at all, and even if I could it'd all be grey, but your picture on my wall, it reminds me that it's not so bad, it's not so bad". These lyrics are repeated throughout the song.
- In the first verse, Stan is writing to Eminem for the third time, hoping his hero will write back. He explains the level of his devotion ('I got a room full of your posters and your pictures, man) and maintains that Eminem 'must not have got 'em', his previous two letters. Stan also reveals that his girlfriend is pregnant, and that he is going to name his daughter Bonnie, and sympathizes with the suicide of a family member ('I read about your Uncle Ronnie too I'm sorry/I had a friend kill himself over some bitch who didn't want him'). Despite of the optimism of Stan, the menacing beats, intermittent thunder and rainfall, and the background music keeps the mood dark and ominous.
- In the second verse, Stan is clearly frustrated. He begins somewhat optimistically but begins to lose his temper by the second line ('I ain't mad - I just think it's fucked up you don't answer fans). The thunder in the background has grown steadily more constant and louder, particularly at some of the more chilling lines in the song. This verse also shows Stan's general lack of mental health: 'Sometimes I even cut myself to see how much it bleeds/It's like adrenaline, the pain is such a sudden rush for me.' Stan mentions his little brother, Matthew, who is an even bigger fan of Eminem than Stan himself. Stan is bitter because Eminem had supposedly refused to give Matthew an autograph at a concert, after waiting in the 'blistering cold' for four hours. Stan explains why he identifies with Eminem ('I never knew my father neither/He used to always cheat on my mom and beat her).
- The third verse is Stan rapping into a tape recorder in the car he is about to drive off a bridge. His words are slurred, and he is clearly under the influence of depressants, as evidenced by the line, "I'm on a thousand downers now, I'm drowsy." His pregnant girlfriend can be heard screaming in the trunk, and the rain and thunder are loud and insistent. Stan is irate, addressing Eminem as "Dear Mister-I'm-Too-Good-To-Call-Or-Write-My-Fans". He explains his predicament: "I'm in the car right now, I'm doing 90 on the freeway/Hey Slim, I drank a fifth of vodka, you dare me to drive?" (quoting "My Name Is..." on the previous Eminem album, The Slim Shady LP). This is followed by a reference to a Phil Collins song, "In the Air Tonight". Specifically, Stan refers to an urban legend that the song is about Collins seeing a man drowning, while a closer bystander does nothing to save him. (Collins has stated that this is not true and nothing of the sort ever happened.) Stan vents, revealing the depths of his anger: "I hope you can't sleep and you dream about it/And when you dream I hope you can't sleep and you scream about it/I hope your conscience eats at you and you can't breathe without me". At the end, Stan realizes too late he will be unable to send the tape to Eminem. In the live Grammy performance of the song, Eminem changed the first line "can't sleep" to "go to sleep". This corrected what was likely an error on the album track due to Eminem's avoidance of "punch-ins", recording over any mistakes in a verse, in order to preserve the ferocity of lyrical delivery he is renowned for.
- The fourth verse is Eminem's belated reply to Stan. He begins casually "Dear Stan, I meant to write you sooner but I just been busy." He also says he sends a cap with his autograph for Matthew, and reveals something of his serious and sober side with his advice for Stan: "You got some issues Stan/I think you need some counseling" and "I really think you and your girlfriend need each other/or maybe you just need to treat her better". He apologizes for missing Stan at the concert mentioned in the second verse, and also chastises Stan for suggesting an apparently homosexual relationship ("That type of shit'll make me not want us to meet each other"; later related to in the Pet Shop Boys song The Night I Fell in Love). The song ends with Eminem's realization of what has happened ("... in the car they found a tape, but they didn't say who it was to/Come to think about it, his name... it was you. Damn."), and then a sudden clash of thunder and lightning. In the music video, the lightning strike illuminates a split-second image of Stan's face staring in through a window at his former idol.
[edit] Music video
The music video was directed by Phil Atwell and Dr. Dre in California. It is primarily a visualization of the story the song tells, featuring Canadian actor Devon Sawa (who slightly resembles Eminem himself) as Stan, the obsessive fan and British pop singer Dido as his pregnant girlfriend. The video was very well received and became extremely popular.
It was nominated at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2001 for Video of the Year, Best Direction, Best Male Video, Best Rap Video, and Best Cinematography, but did not win any of these.
The music video was ranked #1 on the Much Music Top 100 Most Influential Music Videos from 1997-2007.
[edit] Legacy of the song
The song was released in the United Kingdom in December 2000 and entered the charts at No.1, but was knocked off the top of the chart before Christmas by children's cartoon character Bob the Builder.
At the 2001 Grammy Awards, Eminem was facing a lot of criticism from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation over his lyrics; Eminem responded by performing "Stan" with gay singer Elton John singing Dido's lines. Recordings of this performance were available for download on Eminem's official website, Eminem.com, and, later, on his 2005 greatest hits release, Curtain Call: The Hits.
British DJ Chris Moyles performed a parody of the song entitled "Stanta", and is played on his show every Christmas. It features Moyles taking the part of Stan writing a similar series of letters to Santa Claus with similar results. The parody was never commercially released; for lyrics, see the Chris Moyles website. Canadian actor Scott Thompson also made a parody version of this song where the main chorus ended "Are you straight or gay?" (audio clip).
British impressionist Alistair McGowan parodied the video during the Christmas 2000 edition of his BBC TV series Alistair McGowan's Big Impression; in this version Eminem (played by McGowan) was seen in Stan's place and Eminem's mother, Debbie Mathers (played by Ronni Ancona), in place of Stan's girlfriend. Eminem is portrayed as an obsessive fan of British DJ Jimmy Savile, writing obsessively in the hope of being on Jim'll Fix It, but driven to produce rap music after failing to get a response. Lines included "Dear Jim, this is the last letter I'm gonna write ya/And if I don't get a Fix-It on your show, then I'm gonna fight ya/I know you got my last two letters, I wrote the addresses on 'em neatly/BBC Wood Lane, W12 8QT!"
In 2001, a Dutch comedian, Arjen Lubach and a singer, Janine Abbring released the parody Jelle which stayed in the Top 40 in the Netherlands for 14 weeks. In the song, Stan is replaced by Jelle, an obsessive fan of Frisian pop group De Kast. In the final verse, Jelle drives his bicycle into a lake, with his pregnant guinea-pig in his backpack. The comedians were nominated for a Top Of The Pops Award 'Best Newcomer' in December 2001.
Australian comedian John Safran made a parody music video of Stan about Eminem (referred to as Marshall) doing community service at a children's hospital. Marshall is told to read the book "Green Eggs and Ham" to the children. He reads the book in the same fashion that "Stan" is composed, but ad-libbing lines from the book into the rap lyrics.
The great Luke Ski recorded a song parody that is a pastiche of "Stan", "Lose Yourself", and "Cleanin' Out My Closet" entitled "Stealing Like a Hobbit", poking fun at the first two films of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy. The "Stan" section of the song features Samwise Gamgee in place of Stan, writing a letter to Frodo Baggins as they rest for a moment on their quest to destroy the One Ring; the lyrics from Dido's "Thank You" are replaced by a verse of the elf Arwen lamenting the hardships of her love for the heroic Aragorn.
Rapper Canibus released a response track to this song entitled U Didn't Care, in which Canibus, as Stan, accused Eminem of not caring about him at all. Christian rapper KJ-52 also wrote 2 songs calling Eminem to come to the Lord.
As a result of the song, the term "Stan" is sometimes used within the hip-hop community to derisively refer to people seen as fanboys of certain artists, particularly devoted fans of Eminem. In "Ether," a famous diss track directed toward Jay-Z, rapper Nas includes the line, "You a fan, a phony, a fake, a pussy, a Stan" in his lyrics, claiming that Jay-Z idolized him before he began rapping and fabricated his past as a hustler. On the edited version of "Curtain Call", Eminem refers to Moby as a "Stan" rather than a "fag" in "Without Me".
"Stan" has been listed by many as one of the greatest hip-hop songs of all time. It was ranked #3 in a list of songs in this genre by Q magazine [2], and came in 10th in a similar survey conducted by Top40-Charts.com.[3]. Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time ranked it #290, one of Eminem's two songs on the list along with "Lose Yourself."
| Preceded by "Never Had a Dream Come True" by S Club 7 |
UK number one single December 16, 2000 |
Succeeded by "Can We Fix It?" by Bob The Builder |
| Preceded by "Can't Fight the Moonlight" by LeAnn Rimes |
ARIA (Australia) number one single March 11, 2001 |
Succeeded by "Case Of The Ex" by Mya |
| Dido |
|---|
| Discography |
| Studio albums |
| No Angel · Life For Rent |
| Singles |
| "Here with Me" · "Thank You" · "Hunter" . "All You Want" "White Flag" . "Life for Rent" . "Don't Leave Home" . "Sand in My Shoes" "Do They Know It's Christmas?" |
