[artist id="502642"]Eminem[/artist] tried, and in his eyes failed, to pay tribute to his late friend and [artist id="1162870"]D12[/artist] partner Proof in the past. Though the subject of [article id="1528386"]Proof's death in 2006[/article] weighed heavily on his mind, Em couldn't quite figure out how to put it into words.

But on the "Road to Recovery" special on Sirius' Shade 45 channel last week, the rapper explained that on "You're Never Over," from his new [article id="1642738"]Recovery album[/article], he finally put the right bars together. Produced by Just Blaze, the song grinds along on fuzzed-out guitars and a spare beat as Em rhymes, "The days are cold livin' without you/ The nights are long, I'm growing older/ I miss the days of old, thinkin' about you/ You may be gone, but you're never over ... If Proof could see me now, I know he'd be proud/ Somewhere in me deep down, there's something in me he found/ That made him believe in me, no one can beat me now."

"For me, this is the most important song off the record," Em said of the tune in which he credits his "guardian angel" Proof (born DeShaun Holton) for inspiring him to keep going and not fall victim to his darker tendencies. "It's a dedication to Proof. It is one of those records that I tried ... I had several attempts at making. Every attempt just wasn't good enough. It was one of those things, I tried a bunch of records and it just didn't work. Like, 'This is not good enough, the rhyme's not crazy enough, the beat's not crazy enough.' When I finally got it, I felt like, 'Thank you, thank you, God for just giving me the strength to be able to write this record and make it feel like it does.' "

In an uncharacteristically gentle voice on the chorus, in which he sings, "I just miss you," Slim Shady does his best to croon out the dedication, though he was the first to admit that he's not a world-class singer.

"I guess as long as the emotion is there ... But it was one of those moments on the record where I feel like, 'OK, I finally did Proof some kind of justice by being able to put that together and dump my heart on the record,' " he said. "It was one of those things that when it got towards the end of the record, I really didn't even care about making the rhyme crazy, I just wanted it to say it."

What do you think of Eminem's dedication to Proof? Let us know in the comments below!