Songfacts®:

• "Jimmy, Brian and Mike" is a comical cut that tells the story of three friends' attempts to get high. The blundering dudes try all sorts of substances, including alcohol, bleach, markers, burning plastic, and inhaling nitrous oxide from a balloon.
  
  The events take place during a party at Jimmy's mom's house. Things spiral out of control, leaving the home in utter disorder. Jimmy loses patience with his friends, fires a warning shot with a gun, and kicks them out.
• During the post-chorus, Eminem names four people:
  
  (Chicka) Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky, and Mike
  
  Ronnie DeVoe, Bobby Brown, Ricky Bell and Michael Bivins were four members of the R&B group New Edition. Em's namecheck is an interpolation of a line from their 1984 song "Cool It Now," which was one of the first commercial R&B hits to feature a rap interlude.
• Eminem originally recorded "Jimmy, Brian and Mike" sometime around the turn of the century during the sessions for The Marshall Mathers LP. He co-produced the hedonistic party jam with regular cohort Dr. Dre and "The Real Slim Shady" collaborator Mike Elizondo. The Detroit MC scrapped the track during its early stages, possibly because he already had other songs about drug use ("Drug Ballad," "The Kids") on the album.
  
  When it came time to put together the 20th anniversary edition of The Eminem Show, Em decided to finish what he started. He went back into the lab around March 2022, re-recorded the first half of the first verse and the chorus, and included it in a 38-track expanded edition of the record.