Home | Songs By Year | Songs from 1997
'97 Bonnie & Clyde
Buy '97 Bonnie & Clyde now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the song. And once you've experienced the song, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
"'97 Bonnie & Clyde'" is a song by the American rapper Eminem. The song appears on the 'Slim Shady EP' (as "'Just the Two of Us'") and 'The Slim Shady LP'. Eminem recorded a prequel for 'The Marshall Mathers LP', "Kim". The song was covered by Tori Amos on her 2001 album of gender-swapped covers, 'Strange Little Girls'.
In the song, Eminem (or his alter ego Slim Shady) talks to his daughter whilst taking her to the pier to throw his wife, Kim, in the sea. He speaks to his daughter Hailie in a baby like fashion (ex: c'mon Hai-Hai we going to the beach.
Grab a couple of toys and let Dada strap you into the car seat.) but still has a dark undertone.
Background
The song has Eminem disposing of the corpse of his ex-wife, Kim Mathers, in the lake with his then-infant daughter Hailie. The sounds played at the beginning of the song, including the jingling of keys and the slamming of a car door, imply that Eminem put Kim's body in the trunk of his car. These are the same sounds played at the end of the song "Kim" by Eminem. In "Kim", the lines immediately before the sounds are heard. Eminem got the idea to write this song at a time when Kim was stopping him from seeing his daughter. Eminem asked Marilyn Manson to guest appear on the song, but the singer declined because he felt that the song was "too misogynistic".
Critical response
AllMusic highlighted and praised the song: "notorious track where he imagines killing his wife and then disposing of the body with his baby daughter in tow" and critic noted that this song is connected with Eminem's life struggles. Steve "Flash" Juon called the remix bad and he continued, "[It is] lifeless and oddly out of place among an album full of mostly dope cuts." Rob Sheffield wrote, "[T]he wife-killing jokes of "97 Bonnie and Clyde" aren't any funnier than Garth Brooks'." 'Entertainment Weekly' gave a positive opinion: "In the album's funniest slice of black humor, a smart-ass parody of Will Smith's unctuous "Just the Two of Us" called "97 Bonnie & Clyde," Eminem and his baby daughter take a pleasant drive to a lake into which he tosses the dead body of the child's mother. Sending up the gooey sentiments and pop melody of the Smith hit, Eminem raps: "Mama said she wants to show you how far she can float/And don't worry about that little boo-boo on her throat."
See also
* 'Bonnie and Clyde' (film), 1967
* "'03 Bonnie & Clyde", 2002 song by Jay-Z featuring Beyonc
References
Category:1998 singles
Category:Eminem songs
Category:Songs about Bonnie and Clyde
Category:Tori Amos songs
Category:Horrorcore songs
Category:Obscenity controversies in music
Category:Songs written by Eminem
Category:1997 songs
Category:Songs about parenthood
Category:Interscope Records singles
Category:Uxoricide in fiction
Category:Songs about domestic violence
Category:Songs written by Jeff Bass
Buy '97 Bonnie & Clyde now from Amazon
<-- Return to songs from 1997