"Before I Forget" is a song by American heavy metal band Slipknot, released as the third single from the band's third studio album, '' Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)'' (2004). It was cited by

AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017� ...

as the top metal song of the decade. It also won a

Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance The Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance is an award presented at the Grammy Awards to recording artists for works (songs or albums) containing quality performances in the heavy metal music genre. The Grammy Awards is an annual ceremony, where ...

in 2006. "Before I Forget" borrows elements from a much older Slipknot song "Carve", recorded before their self-titled album. The earliest version was in 1996 with Anders Colsefni on vocals. "Carve" was for the SR Demo 1997, referred to by fans as '' Crowz''. "It's about standing your ground and deciding to be a good person, no matter what people say," recalled singer

Corey Taylor Corey Todd Taylor (born December 8, 1973) is an American musician, songwriter and actor. He is the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Slipknot (band), Slipknot, in which he is designated #8, as well as the lead vocalist and guitarist for the ...

. "'' roducer'

Rick Rubin Frederick Jay Rubin (; born March 10, 1963) is an American record producer. He is the co-founder (alongside Russell Simmons) of Def Jam Recordings, founder of American Recordings, and former co-president of Columbia Records. Rubin helped popula ...

was convinced the chorus wouldn't work. I told him he was crazy. Lo and behold, it's one of our biggest songs and we won a Grammy for it." The last 18 seconds of the full-length song feature

morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of ...

in the left channel spelling "Slipknot", and Taylor muttering, "You're wasting it", reversed. The song was featured in the video games ''

MotorStorm ''MotorStorm'' is a racing video game series developed by Evolution Studios, BigBig Studios, Virtuos and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. The titles were off-road racing games featuring different types of vehicles with their own streng ...

'', ''

Rock Band 3 ''Rock Band 3'' is a 2010 music video game developed by Harmonix. The game was initially published and distributed by MTV Games and Electronic Arts, respectively, in late October 2010. Mad Catz took over both roles and re-released the title on N ...

'', '' Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock'' and ''

Guitar Hero Live ''Guitar Hero Live'' is a 2015 music rhythm video game developed by FreeStyleGames and published by Activision. It is the seventh main installment in the ''Guitar Hero'' series. The game was released for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, X ...

''.

Reception and awards

"Before I Forget" is widely regarded as one of the band's best songs. In 2020, ''

Kerrang ''Kerrang!'' is a British weekly magazine devoted to rock, punk and heavy metal music, currently published by Wasted Talent (the same company that owns electronic music publication ''Mixmag''). It was first published on 6 June 1981 as a one-of ...

'' and ''

Louder Sound ''Classic Rock'' is a British magazine and website dedicated to rock music, owned and published by Future. It was launched in October 1998 and is based in London. The magazine publishes 13 editions a year, mainly covering rock bands from the 60, ...

'' ranked the song number seven and number six, respectively, on their lists of the greatest Slipknot songs. After being nominated six times, the band won the 2006

. It was the second track from the album to be nominated: "

Vermilion Vermilion (sometimes vermillion) is a color, color family, and pigment most often made, since ancient history, antiquity until the 19th century, from the powdered mineral cinnabar (a form of mercury sulfide, which is toxic) and its correspondi ...

" was nominated in 2005 for the same award.

Music video

The video for "Before I Forget" shows Slipknot performing the song unmasked and in casual clothes (all with black shirts), as opposed to their usual coveralls. The video makes use of strategic camera techniques in which the members' faces are never totally shown (in some instances, however, some of the band members' eyes are shown up close), thus keeping with the band's running theme of anonymity at the time. Their masks are shown next to them as they perform. At the end of the music video, the band immediately stops playing the song as it ends and they all walk away. As of January 2022, the song has 224 million views on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

. The music video for "Before I Forget" was directed by

Tony Petrossian Tony Petrossian is a commercial and music video director. Petrossian is represented by William Morris Endeavor for feature films & television projects in the U.S. Commercials (partial list) *Futuroscope - "Robotic Seats" (Paris, France) *Nike - ...

and was voted as the "Most Rocking Video" by the

Scuzz Scuzz was a British 24-hour rock and metal music television channel owned and operated by Sony Pictures Television. It was launched on 17 April 2003 and went on to be the highest-rated rock TV station on the Sky satellite platform, available i ...

audience in the Top 100 Most Rocking Videos 2007. This music video also helped to garner the band its first and only Grammy Award win for "Best Metal Performance" in 2006.

Track listing

;7" vinyl part one ;7" vinyl part two ;US promo CD ;EU promo CD

Charts

Certifications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Before I Forget (Song) 2004 songs 2005 singles Slipknot (band) songs Roadrunner Records singles Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance Music videos directed by Tony Petrossian Song recordings produced by Rick Rubin Songs written by Paul Gray (American musician) Songs written by Corey Taylor Songs written by Jim Root Songs written by Joey Jordison