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Sam Smith’s London Coliseum residency is coming to BBC One•
Ashe has announced her new album ‘The Girl Of Your Dreams’•
Arthur Hill is going ‘Arthway Round the World’ on his biggest tour yet•
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  1. Tracks
  2. Eminem
  3. The Marshall Mathers LP2 (Deluxe)
  4. Brainless
Brainless by Eminem

TRACK

Eminem

Brainless

Release date: 5th November 2013

From The Marshall Mathers LP2 (Deluxe)
Track 10
4:47
Hip-Hop/RapMusicHardcore RapRap
Spotify Apple Music More on Eminem

About This Track

'Brainless' opens with a vintage public-service-announcement sample proposing a frontal lobotomy as the solution to Eminem's distorted brain, setting the tone for a track that mines childhood trauma and adolescent violence with caustic humour. The lyrics sketch a progression from bullied six-year-old to jumped teenager, each beating met with a retreat into fantasy and wordplay. Eminem credits his mother's warning, 'If you had a brain, you'd be dangerous', as both dismissal and prophecy, the chorus twisting her judgement into a defiant mantra about escaping insanity through imagination.

The verses catalogue schoolyard humiliation in vivid detail: a twelve-year-old stealing his liquorice, beatings twice in one week, the sense of being doomed from jump street. Against that backdrop, the hook's refrain, 'Guess it pays to be brainless', reads less as self-deprecation than as survival strategy, the implication being that keeping his head down and channelling rage into rhyme was the only valid shot at life. The closing image of rhymes falling out of his pants pocket while locked in his room frames the writing itself as both escape hatch and revenge plot, the trash-talking trance a way to accomplish any task when the world outside offers nothing.

"Brainless" is a track by Eminem, from the album The Marshall Mathers LP2 (Deluxe), released 5th November 2013. The track is 4:47 long. It's filed under Hip-Hop/Rap. Full lyrics are available below. Dork has published 1 article about Eminem.

About the Artist

Eminem

Eminem

Lyrics

Brainless

Poor Eminem has a full line of chainsaws
Eminem, Eminem, Eminem, Eminem
Eminem, Eminem
Marshall Mathers, Eminem, the rapper Eminem
Who can say for sure?
Perhaps a frontal lobotomy would be the answer
If science can operate on his distorted brain and put it to good use
Society will reap a great benefit

I walk around like a space cadet, place your bets
Who's likely to become a serial killer? Case of Tourette's
F-, f-, f- can't take the stress
I make a mess as the day progresses
Angry and take it out on the neighbors hedges
Like this is how I'll cut your face up bitches with these hedge trimming scissors with razor edges
Imagination's dangerous, it's the only way to escape this mess
And make the best of this situation, I guess

'Cause I feel like a little b-, predicaments, despicable
I'm sick of just getting pushed, it's ridiculous
I look like a freaking wuss, a pu-
This kid just took my stick of licorice and threw my sticker books in a picker bush
I wanna kick his toosh, but I was six and shook
This f- was 12 and was six foot, with a vicious hook
He hit me, I fell, I got back up, all I did was book, now there's using your head

Mama always said
"If you had a brain, you'd be dangerous"
A brain you'd be dangerous
(Mama could be wrong)
Mama, I'ma grow a name and be famous
And I'ma be a pain in the anus

(Mama could be wrong)
I'ma use my head as a weapon
Find a way to escape this insaneness
(Mama always said)
"Son, If you had a brain, you'd be dangerous"
Guess it pays to be brainless

Fast-forward some years later, a teenager
This is a fun, sweet! I just got jumped twice in one week, it's complete
It's usually once a month, this is some feat I've accomplished
They've stomped me into the mud for what reason, you stomped me
But how do you get the sh- beat out of you, be down and be upbeat
When you don't have no-thing, no valid shot at life
Chance to make it or succeed 'cause you're doomed from the start
It's like you grew up on drug street, from jump street
But if I had just kept my head up my ass
I could accomplish any task, practicing trash talking in a trance

Locked in my room, yeah, but I got some plans mama
These damn rhymes are falling out of my pants pocket, I can't stop it
And I'm starting to blend in more, school, this - helps for sure
I'm getting more self-assured than I've ever been before
Plus no one picks on me anymore, I done put a stop to that
Threw my first punch, end of story
Still in my skulls a vacant, empty void
Been using it more as a bin for storage

Take some inventory and as gorge as a Ford engine door
Hinge syringe an orange an extension cord and a Ninja sword
Not to mention four lynch pins and a stringent stored
Ironing board a bench a wrench or winch and a tangent whore
Everything but a brain, but dome's off the fucking chain
Like an independent store, something's wrong with my head
Just think if I had a brain in it, thank God that I don't
'Cause I'd probably be Dahmer

'Cause mama always said
"If you had a brain, you'd be dangerous"
A brain you'd be dangerous
(Mama could be wrong)
Mama, I'ma grow a name and be famous
And I'ma be a pain in the anus

(Mama could be wrong)
I'ma use my head as a weapon
Find a way to escape this insaneness
(Mama always said)
"Son, If you had a brain, you'd be dangerous"
Guess it pays to be brainless

Now my mom goes "womp, womp, womp"
'Cause I'm not that smart, but I'm not dumb
I was on a bottom of the pile getting stomped
But somehow, I came out on top

I told you one day, I said they'd have that red carpet rolled out, yo
I'm nice, yo, fuck it I'm out cold
Now everywhere I go, they scream out "Go!"
I'm 'bout to clean house, yo
I'm Lysol, now I'm just household
Outsold the sell outs, freak the hell out
Middle America, hear them yell out
They were so scared, and those kids

Just about, belted out, whatever spout that it fell out
Of my smart alleck mouth, it was so weird
Inappropriate, so be it, I don't see it
Maybe one day when the smoke clears, it won't be as
Motherfu- difficult, ch'yea, 'til then
Hopefully you little hom- get over your fears and grow beards
It's okay to be scared straight, they said I provoke qu-
'Til emotions evoke tears, my whole careers a stroke of sheer genius

Smoke and mirrors, tactical, practical jokes, yeah
You motherfu- (insert insult here)
Who the f- would've thunk that one little lone MC
Would be able to take the whole culture and re-upholstery it
And boy they did flock, can't believe this little hick locked
This Hip-Hop sh- in his pocket and still the sh- got that white trash traffic and gridlock
Sh- happened like a six blocks from a Kid Rock Insane Clown Posse concert in mid Oc-tober
And got forbid I see a wizard and get a brain in my titanium cranium dog
'Cause I turn into the unabomber

Mama always said
"If you had a brain, you'd be dangerous"
A brain you'd be dangerous
(Mama could be wrong)
Mama, I'ma grow a name and be famous
And I'ma be a pain in the anus

(Mama could be wrong)
I'ma use my head as a weapon
Find a way to escape this insaneness
(Mama always said)
"Son, If you had a brain, you'd be dangerous"
Guess it pays to be brainless

Insaneness ain't even a word you stupid -
Neither is ain't

Lyrics provided by LRCLIB

View full lyrics page →

Track details

From The Marshall Mathers LP2 (Deluxe)

4:472013
Listen
Album
The Marshall Mathers LP2 (Deluxe)
The Marshall Mathers LP2 (Deluxe)
Eminem
5th November 2013
Track number
10
Release year
2013
  1. 1Bad Guy
    7:14
  2. 2Parking Lot (skit)
    0:55
  3. 3Rhyme Or Reason
    5:02
  4. 4So Much Better
    4:21

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  1. Beautiful (2006)
  2. Cleanin' Out My Closet [V4]
  3. Discombobulated [V4]
  4. Get Your Money Straight (Unreleased, KM Track 13)
  5. Got My Gat Back
  6. In A Perfect World
  7. Keys To The City [Unreleased & Not Leaked, KM Track 12)
  8. Kim [V3]
  9. King Mathers (Unreleased, KM Track 14)
  10. Marshall Mathers [V1]

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  • 5Survival
    4:32
  • 6Legacy
    4:56
  • 7A*****e (feat. Skylar Grey)
    4:51
  • 8Berzerk
    3:59
  • 9Rap God
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  • 10Brainless
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  • 12The Monster (feat. Rihanna)
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  • 14Love Game (feat. Kendrick Lamar)
    4:57
  • 15Headlights (feat. Nate Ruess)
    5:43
  • 16Evil Twin
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  • —Wicked Ways
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  • —Headlights
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  • —Asshole
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  • Credits

    Production & Engineering

    Writer
    Eminem, Luis Resto
    Producer
    Eminem, Luis Resto
    Keyboards
    Luis Resto
    Additional Production
    Luis Resto
    Mastering Engineer
    Brian Gardner
    Mixing Engineer
    Eminem, Mike Strange
    Recording Engineer
    Joe Strange, Mike Strange, Tony Campana
    READ MORE ABOUT EMINEMREAD MORE ABOUT EMINEMREAD MORE ABOUT EMINEMREAD MORE ABOUT EMINEM
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    Watch a new clip from Eminem's superfan documentary STANS, releasing in August
    News

    Watch a new clip from Eminem's superfan documentary STANS, releasing in August

    The rapper's new documentary explores his influence through devoted fans' perspectives, hitting global theaters for a limited release this August.

    31 Jul 2025 • 7:46 pm