Eminem Lyrical Analysis: "Never Love Again" and "Marsh"

A dive into the lyrics of two Eminem songs from the 2020 album, "Music to Be Murdered By"

Hi there, Eminem fans! Welcome back to another post on All Things Eminem, brought to you by Slim Sadie Publication. As promised, this week, we will be looking at some great lyrics from our favorite rapper. 

First though, I need to put out a content warning. In previous posts, I was careful to only directly quote Eminem’s songs when the language was appropriate. Because the point of this post is to look at the majority of the lyrics in specific songs, I will not have the ability to remove all the inappropriate language. I will use asterisks as necessary and try to avoid overly sexualized parts, but do remember that this is Slim Shady we’re talking about, so this stuff is just bound to happen. 

To accomplish this lyrical dive, I have taken the lyrics provided by the site, Genius, and put them into the left column of a two column table. The right column contains my comments and explanations of the lyrics to the left. It’s also really important to note that the entire lyrics of the songs are not contained in that left column. I have put +’s in places where I have removed lines to either conserve space or censor content, so if you’d like to see the full lyrics, just click on the song title and you’ll be sent to the full lyrics on Genius. 

We’re going to start with the song that I sort of gushed over in my previous post. The song is “Never Love Again.” It is one of my favorite Eminem songs, because lyrically it surpasses just about anything I have ever heard. Honestly, it’s hardly a song, it's so literary. I would prefer to call it a poem, with the literary techniques that are used. I mean, the entire song has a double meaning pulling you back and forth between thinking it’s an abusive romantic relationship or an addictive medicative relationship. The parallels he draws between the two are incredibly insightful, and the way he delivers it is simply beyond comparison. This is one of his best works; I highly recommend that you take a listen. 

“Never Love Again” has no intro, so you are immediately thrown into the song. It begins with a quick beat and a semi emotional tone from the rapper, however, the real emotion comes out at the chorus when the beat drops. There is a stillness in the music as his voice echoes. I can still feel my heart drop here in the song, and I’ve listened at least 100 times. It’s 100% worth a listen, but for now, let’s look at the lyrics. 

Quick note: I highlighted my favorite rhyme schemes and underlined the drug references, so you can catch them all. They’re the foundation of what makes this song so brilliant.

We’re going to do only one other song this week, because “Never Love Again” is just such a handful. I will stick with the same album, though. From the 2020 “Music to Be Murdered By” album, I present to you, “Marsh.”

If you’re looking for a more Slim Shady sounding song, this is one for you. “Marsh” has a quirky piano beat played under unique and choppy rhymes. At times, the song can be quite comical, especially when Shady uses his mocking voice. Still, there are some fairly inappropriate and irreverent rhymes in this song. I have excluded them from my lyrical analysis below, but I wanted to be sure to warn you all before you click on any links. If you are a fan that enjoys Eminem’s irreverent side, then I would absolutely recommend taking a listen.

Let’s dive into this quirky song called “Marsh.”

That’s all for this week. I really hope you enjoyed this post; I had so much fun making it! I will plan to do the same thing next week with different songs, so if you have any song suggestions feel free to put them in the comment section below. Otherwise, I’ll just plan to do some more recent songs to give them the credit they deserve. Also, be sure to leave a comment on your thoughts about this week’s post. I’d love to hear from you all!

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next week on All Things Eminem!