"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 rapperEminem. The song is perhaps Eminem's most critically-acclaimed song and has been called a 'cultural milestone'.[1] 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 actually being spoken in the car itself as he is about to drive off a bridge. The fourth verse is Eminem responding too late to Stan, only realizing at the last second that he has heard about Stan's death as he was writing to him.
The song samples "Thank You" by Dido in the chorus; unusually, Dido's part was a verse, not the chorus, in the original song.
- In the first verse, Stan writes to Eminem for the third time. He is still optimistic that his hero will write back. He explains the level of his devotion ('I got a room full of your posters and your pictures man'). He optimistically believes that Eminem 'must not have got 'em', meaning his previous two letters. Stan also reveals that his girlfriend is pregnant, and that he is going to name his daughter Bonnie, a reference to his song "97 Bonnie and Clyde", 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'). In spite of the optimism of Stan, the menacing beats, intermittent thunder and rainfall, background music keeps the mood dark and ominous.
- In the second verse, Stan is frustrated, though not very angry. 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, lines that illustrate the depths of Stan's fanaticism, such as: 'I even got a tattoo with your name across my chest' and 'PS: We should be together too'. as well as his 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' (see self-harm). Stan mentions his little brother, Matthew, who is an even bigger fan than Stan himself. This could be interpreted as an example of psychological projection on Stan's part, placing his own feelings and emotions on someone else. Stan is bitter because Eminem had 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 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.
- 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.
The music video was directed by Phil Atwell and Dr. Dre in California. It features Devon Sawa as Stan, the obsessive fan and Dido as his pregnant girlfriend. It essentially acts out the entire context of the song, and includes a brief sequence at the beginning in which Stan's girlfriend comes into the bathroom to find him dying his hair to make it look more like that of Eminem's. The video was very well received and became extremely popular.
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. British DJ Chris Moyles performed a parody of the song entitled "Stanta", featuring Moyles taking the part of Stan writing a similar series of letters to Santa Claus with similar results. The parody was never commercially released. Alistair McGowan also parodied it on his TV show, portraying Eminem as an obsessive fan of Jimmy Savile who was driven to producing terrible rap music after Jim failed to fix it for him.
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.
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 rapperKJ-52 also wrote 3 songs calling Eminem to come to the Lord.
Canadian actor Scott Thompson also made a parody version of this song where the main chorus ended "Are you straight or gay?" (audio clip).
At the 2001Grammy Awards, Eminem was facing a lot of criticism from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation over his lyrics, and as a result Eminem responded by performing "Stan" with homosexual 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.
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".
