Trivia
- “Won’t Back Down” marks the first Eminem song to feature a pop star performing newly recorded vocals. Although received a featured credit on “Stan,” her contribution was sampled from a previously released song. The second was “Love the Way You Lie,” which appears later on the same album. To date, Eminem has gone on to feature a pop artist on every subsequent album.
- The song was later featured in the video game Call Of Duty: Black Ops and in the Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol official trailer.
Words from DJ Khalil and Eminem
“I’ve been a staff producer for Dr. Dre, so I’ve kind of worked my way up the ranks. What got me to Eminem was working with Slaughterhouse. As soon as I worked with Slaughterhouse and did “The One,” that really caught his attention. He loved that record. Originally, I made that for him — it just never got to him — but it ended up getting me on Recovery. Paul Rosenberg called me, and I told him that “The One” was for Em. He was like, “Oh my God, how did we miss that one? Do you have any more?” I was like, “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do.” Then Dre called me, and Dre was like, “Yo, come out here, Marshall wants to meet you.”
I remember we went up to the front room at Encore Studios. Scott Storch was there, so it was me, Eminem, Scott Storch, and Dre. I was playing beats for Eminem, and there’s this beat that I played. Liz Rodrigues is singing the hook — the same one P!nk would later perform. He picked up a pad and started writing right there on the spot, and Dre looked at me, gave me the thumbs up, and started smiling.
“It was one of them tracks where I felt like I just heard [P!nk] on it. And I’ve always respected what she does. She’s kind of a rebel to me, you know, and obviously she’s talented, so she did her thing.
“Originally we had another vocalist, Liz Rodrigues, who is in my group, but she was already on “25 To Life” and “Almost Famous.” So we were thinking, “Who else could we get for this record that would actually fit?” When [Em] brought up P!nk, I thought she would kill it. He set up the session in Malibu, we did the session, and she was done in like 20 minutes. She nailed it in her own way. I was kind of married to the original, but once I heard what she did and how she put her stamp on it, it was perfect, because she just brought the attitude out.