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Touch Me, I'm Sick: The 52 Creepiest Love Songs You've Ever Heard | 
 enlarge | Author: Tom Reynolds
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
Buy New: $7.37
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Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 69162
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 1556527535
Dewey Decimal Number: 782.42164
EAN: 9781556527531
ASIN: 1556527535
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
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Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
Love once inspired sonnets, plays, novels, and countless romantic songs. But romance can become obsession, and nowadays, love songs are creepier than ever. Even the Police’s stalker anthem “Every Breath You Take” is a popular choice at weddings and funerals. In Touch Me, I’m Sick, Tom Reynolds offers hilarious riffs on 52 love songs that have gone off the rails into the realm of the tawdry, the overwhelming, the obsessive, the self-absorbed, and the completely weird. Including songs by artists as diverse as Melissa Etheridge, Michael Jackson, Paul Anka, Sinead O’Connor, and Slipknot, he also pillories a handful of the 1,700 different songs called “Butterfly.” Praise for Tom Reynolds’ I Hate Myself and Want to Die: "A tremendous idea . . . Reynolds ameliorates the pain of having put his ear up close to some of the most inconsiderate despair anthems of our time by having enormous fun deconstructing them." —The Sunday Times "Full of premium trivia and pinpoint pomposity-pricking, Reynolds has made comedy gold from the full base metal of misery." —NME "An entertaining and well-researched set of cautionary tales music fans will enjoy. Consider the list a batch of enthralling liner notes for a box set that comes with razor blades." —Playboy "Bridget Jones would love it." —The Scotsman
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Creepy and funny in the right measure! August 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
A few years ago, I wrote a series of blog posts about my favorite love songs. I planned to follow it up with a companion piece about my least favorite ones, but quickly abandoned the project because there was no way I could ever narrow down the list sufficiently. There were just too many horrible love songs out there - or so I thought. Tom Reynolds apparently had the opposite problem. In the introduction to this book, he says he asked his friends for suggestions for the creepiest love songs of all time, but everybody he asked named the same song. I won't spoil the surprise, but it's probably one of the first songs you thought of upon reading the title. And he's right, it is creepy. So are most of his other nominees, many of which I'd never heard of until now. Which was a good thing!
One reason why this book works as well as it does is that, while the title had me expecting really bad love songs - and there are some - Reynolds also chooses some he freely admits to liking, but which are nevertheless creepy. As with his last volume, on depressing songs, his commentary never fails to be hilarious no matter how awful the subject at hand is. And sometimes it is pretty awful.
One minor shortcoming is that Reynolds' selection of songs to bash is a bit less convincing than it was with the depressing songs book. In my opinion, he chose a few too many teen pop hits from the past five years or so which nobody over the age of 18 is very likely to be familiar with. His analysis of them is just as funny as it is with the better-known ones, but there's something especially entertaining about seeing so-bad-they're-good classics like "Afternoon Delight" and "I've Never Been to Me" ripped to shreds. It just isn't the same with a song I don't know. His explanations as to why a song is creepy aren't always convincing either. (Jennifer Lopez' "Jenny from the Block" is probably the most narcissistic song ever written, but that doesn't make it creepy.) Finally, I can't resist pointing out that Reynolds missed one very easy target: his assessment of "To Know Him is to Love Him" - written by the indisputably creepy Phil Spector - makes a good case against the song, but fails to mention that the innocent-sounding paean to unrequited puppy love was inspired by the inscription on Spector's father's grave. How much creepier could you get?
But for all that, it's an engaging and very, very funny read. Anybody who actually listens to lyrics, and has been exasperated with friends who don't, will love it.
Unique Book Takes a Hard Look at the Lyrics of Truly Sick, Yet Very Successful Songs Often Played onVery Inappropriate Occasions May 25, 2008
With the huge success of Reynold's first dissection of modern music's bad lyrics I HATE MYSELF AND WANT TO DIE: THE 52 MOST DEPRESSING SONGS YOU'VE EVER HEARD there was bound to be an encore and this fascinating read doesn't disappoint. In Touch Me, I'm Sick Reynolds tackles those songs about love, but not the mutually consenting romantic love, no these songs are about obsessive stalking, sleeping with kids, sleeping with parents, pleasuring yourself, jilted lovers, bad break ups as well as basically anything else that you'd be serving serious jail time or even get the chair if the lyrics were real.
The amazing thing is many of these songs are highly popular and requested to be played and set the mood at inappropriate places like wedding receptions and graduations. Which means those who request these songs for these occasions are either sick in the head or have never actually listened to the lyrics and do not know what they are actually about.
Most of these songs spent time in the top ten of the UK or US charts (Reynolds tells you at the start of the dissection of each song) and there's also a few you may not have heard of. Even with the ones you've never heard of Reynolds gives a detailed account of what the song is about then tells the reader why it is creepy. For those of us who were not around in the 70's or earlier when some of these songs were hits you'll also learn interesting facts such as I never knew Michael Jackson's Ben was being sung to an injured human flesh eating rat.
Tom Reynolds certainly is a very funny writer, you'll be laughing out loud at many an observation such as on Paula Cole (p145 if you've got this with you) "She doesn't just have issues, she has lifetime subscriptions". On You're Beautiful by James Blunt (p69) being one of the most requested songs at weddings "makes absolutely no sense because it's about a guy who's too stoned to approach a girl he saw for a few seconds on a subway platform and so he just repeats over and over again how beautiful she is but won't ever see her again" On you're body is a Wonderland by John Mayer "he reassures her that he'll never let her head hit the bed without my hand behind it. I'm completely at a loss as to what this means other than the girl is a pillow chasing nut who likes to ram her skull into the headboard" (p92). These are just three examples of the gems of dissection you'll find in here. His dissection of the life of Kevin Federline is also a must read.
The whole book is actually a must read for any fan of music especially the lyrics. Artists who appear inside include Air Supply, Kylie Minogue, The Offspring, The Beatles (and Reynolds recount of a chat room conversation with a Lennon fan nut who blames every bad Beatles thing on Paul is hilarious), The Police, Pearl Jam, Jennifer Lopez, George Michael, Divinyls, Fergie, Christina Aguilera, Sarah McLaughlan, Alanis Morissette, Sinead O'Connor, Eminem, Jewel, Radiohead, Melissa Etheridge and Motley Crue.
Can't wait for the next dissecting music book by Reynolds, if it's even half as good as the first two I won't be disappointed. By the way although it is no doubt a different person a similarly written book by an author of the same name on being a paramedic Blood, Sweat & Tea: Real-Life Adventures in an Inner-City Ambulance is also very, very good!
Very Entertaining May 13, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a very funny book. Even if the songs are obscure, the stories can stand up on their own. It will stimulate debate among boomers about woeful contributions over the years. Sorry.... But hands down winner has to be "Havin' My Baby". I dare you to deny it!!
Funny stuff April 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Hillarious, snarky jabs at 52 creepy songs. This includes the weird, the annoying and the icky. People familiar with popular music (from the 1970s forward) will appreciate it the most. There's a certian vindication in discovering a song you've long considered stupid/eerie/scary has made the cut. Includes some obscure but too-weird-to-ignore numbers too.
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