Songfacts®:

• "Mockingbird" is Eminem's love song for his daughter Hailie Jade and his niece whom he adopted, Lainie.
  
  Eminem began his often tumultuous relationship with Hailie Jade's mother Kim in 1989 and married her a decade later when Hailie was three. They divorced two years later.
  
  Here, he acknowledges how hard it's been for the two little girls growing up in difficult circumstances with a famous father who is frequently traveling and a mother with drug issues.
  
  And you and Lainie were too young to understand it
  Papa was a rolling stone, Momma developed a habit
  And it all happened too fast for either one of us to grab it
  I'm just sorry you were there and had to witness it first-hand
• Eminem sings the chorus to the tune of the traditional "Mockingbird" lullaby. Sometimes known as "Hush Little Baby," the American folk song originated from the Southern United States. The lullaby soothes infants to sleep with promises of expensive gifts, including a mockingbird, which were often kept as pets in America.
  
  Eminem is assuring Hailie, that, despite all the turmoil, "Everything's gonna be alright", because her father is there.
  
  Now hush, little baby, don't you cry
  Everything's gonna be alright
  Stiffen that upper lip up, little lady, I told ya
  Daddy's here to hold ya through the night
• Most of "Mockingbird" is a rare gentle Eminem song with no cussing or cruel rhymes, but at the end, he can't resist cracking a final joke about wringing the mockingbird's neck. And on the very last line, Em directs the F-word at all those haters who want to put him and his girls down.
• Eminem co-produced "Mockingbird" with Detroit musician Luis Resto. The pair has often worked together since Em's third major-label album, The Eminem Show.
• Eminem recorded "Mockingbird" for his fifth studio album, Encore. Released as its fifth single, it peaked at #4 in the UK and #11 in the US.
• The John "QUIG" Quigley-directed video shows Eminem watching home movies about Hailee and Lainie.
• The song returned to the singles charts worldwide in late 2022 after going viral on TikTok. This time it reached #31 in the UK and the Top 20 in Austria, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland.