Eminem Recalls How He Almost Quit Rapping & Nearly Died In 2007 On "Castle" & "Arose"

Shady takes us back to 2007 on his new album.
Eminem’s newest album Revival has a lot of unpack, from discussions of police brutality to shots at President Donald Trump. The last two tracks of the album are no exception. Revival closes with two very personal records, “Castle” and “Arose,” both of which reference Em quitting rapping for good. However, the songs take place in the past and imply Em contemplated quitting previously, not currently.

On “Castle,” each verse finds Em writing a letter to his daughter Hailie, first in December 1996, then in December 1997, and finally in December 2007. In the third verse, his letter is dated as December 24th, 2007 (the day before Hailie’s birthday) and is clearly written about the period in his life when he was battling an addiction to prescription pills. He raps about being overwhelmed with fame and putting out his last album:

I can’t stomach, they can take this fame back, I don’t want it
I’ll put out this last album then I’m done with it
One-hundred percent finished
Fed up with it, I’m hanging it up, fuck it
Excuse the cursing, baby, but just know
That I’m a good person, though they portray me as cold
And, if things should worsen, don’t take this letter I wrote as a goodbye note
‘Cause your dad’s at the end of his rope
Remember, after Eminem’s 2004 album Encore, he didn’t release another studio album until 2009’s Relapse. So Em seems to be alluding to his rumored album 2007 King Mathers—which was never released, although fans have tried to recreate it.

At the end of “Castle,” Em can be heard collapsing. On the next song, “Arose,” Eminem wakes up in the hospital. The song seems based on his real life near death experience. On “Arose,” a broken Em essentially says goodbye to Hailie, his brother Nathan, and even his mother. But just before he passes away, he regains his strength and starts “rewinding the tape.”

The second half of “Arose” reverts back to “Castle” and Em picks up where he left off, repeating the same lyrics, with a slight variation:

(I don’t want it)
I’ll put out this last album, then I’m done with it
One hundred percent finished, fed up with it
I’m hanging it up, fuck it
Excuse the cursing, baby, but just know
That I’m a good person, though they portray me as cold
And if things should worsen, but I bet you they won’t
But this should not be taken as a sign that Em is considering hanging it up again. Just a few lines later, he raps about triumphantly outdoing albums like Relapse, Recovery, and The Marshall Mathers LP 2 and then explains:

Consider the last four minutes as
The song I’d have sang to my daughters
If I’d have made it to the hospital
Less than two hours later, but I fought it
Came back like a boomerang on ‘em
Now a new day is dawning, I’m up, Tuesday, it’s morning
Now I know
It’s also worth noting, earlier on the album, during the hook to the song “Believe” Em claims he’ll never stop:

Now and walk out I will never let you live it down
(I’ll never quit) Do you still believe in me?
So Shady fans need not fret, the Detroit rapper seems like he’ll never give up the mic. But “Castle” and “Arose” are stark reminders of just how bad his drug addiction got a decade ago and how close he was to losing it all.