“Jimmy, Brian and Mike” by Eminem

It is said that Eminem’s D12 homeys Mr. Porter and the late Proof always wanted Eminem to release this track, but he never got around to doing so, at least not until some 20 years after the fact. But it’s easy to postulate as to why Em wouldn’t want to have featured it on “The Marshall Mathers LP”, around the time it was created. At the top of the list would be the fact that that he already had a similar song on the project in “Drug Ballad“, which is also more acoustically-pleasing than “Jimmy, Brian and Mike”. Also taking tracks like “The Kids” and “Stan” into consideration, now we see that if he wanted to, Em probably could have put out an entire album of these types of narratives.

Lyrics of “Jimmy, Brian and Mike”

And indeed, this track would perhaps most appeal to actual fans of “The Marshal Mathers LP”. Once again, we are met with Slim Shady relaying a comedic tale of drug abuse from the viewpoints of different characters. But for the most part he is taking on the role of one “Jimmy”, with “Brian”, “Mike” and of course “Jeff” being his buddies, all getting high on all types of substances apparently inside of Jimmy’s mom’s house. There’s also the upstairs neighbor, “Mr. Johnson”, who pops in for the spell. And to make a long story short, Jimmy and co. come off as bumbling idiots when they’re all high together.

And some readers may be saying to themselves, how can a topic like drug abuse be called comedic? Well, think of those movies like Animal House or what have you. Indeed, there’s even a reference to Beavis & Bu-thead, a couple of popular characters who are well-known for being idiots, in the lyrics. 

Conclusively, it can also be theorized that this piece was intended more as straight-up entertainment than “Drug Ballad” as, unlike that song, “Jimmy, Brian and Mike” doesn’t seem to have any type of advisory message embedded therein.

Facts about “Jimmy, Brian and Mike”

This composition dates back to the days of “The Marshall Mathers LP”, i.e. the album Eminem dropped in the year 2000. 

Em didn’t get around to finishing “Jimmy, Brian and Mike” until the release of The Eminem Show (Expanded Edition), a project that came out on 26 May 2022 in honor of the original issuance of “The Eminem Show” 20 years prior.

Eminem produced and co-wrote this song with Dr. Dre and Mike Elizondo. 

The release of “Jimmy, Brian and Mike” was backed by Shady Records, Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records, i.e. the labels behind “The Eminem Show”.