Trivia

• “3 a.m.” was released as the album’s third single, following “Crack A Bottle” and “We Made You.” It peaked at No. 32 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 56 on the UK Singles Chart.
• The song serves as both the album’s second track and the second part of its core concept — Slim Shady’s return — following the intro “Dr. West.”
• In the bridge, where Eminem says, “She puts the lotion in the bucket / It puts the lotion on the skin / Or else it gets the hose again,” he interpolates dialogue spoken by Buffalo Bill in the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs. A song inspired by the same character was later released on Relapse: Refill.
• The time 3 a.m. is considered the “witching hour,” or “devil’s hour,” in folklore, believed to be when supernatural forces are strongest, the veil between life and death is thinnest, and evil entities appear.
• A rock remix of the song by Travis Barker was released as a non-album single on May 29, 2009.

Words from Eminem

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I did find myself watching a lot of documentaries on serial killers [in preparation for the album]. [...] I’ve always been intrigued by them, and watching movies like The Silence of the Lambs, I found that going back through my DVD collection and watching films about killers sparked something in me.

The way a serial killer’s mind works — the psychology of them — is pretty fucking crazy. I was definitely inspired by that, but most of that imagery came from my own mind.

I did everything I could to relapse into the old me. When you relapse, you go into your old ways harder than before. [...] In “3 a.m.,” I relapse in a rehab facility or something like it. I just black out and fucking kill everybody.

I was trying to create a triple entendre with the [album] title: relapsing literally, going back to the old days — just blacking the fuck out and killing everyone. I wanted to paint a picture for the listener, to make them feel like they are in the story and part of it as each line progresses.