Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #144040 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-13
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 280 pages

Synopsis
The book that EVERY music fan will want this Christmas: an unforgettable examination of the songs we all cry along to What is it about depressing songs that make such a lasting impression on people's minds - the lyrical tugging of the heartstrings? The melancholy melody? If you're a true connoisseur, these elements are just the beginning, as Tom Reynolds illustrates brilliantly in this addictive book. With a heavy heart and a tear in his beer, Reynolds painstakingly analyses the mysterious allure of songs that crush our spirits by looking at 52 depressing songs - from top-10 hits to cultish dirges - that have earned our slavish devotion over the years. Breaking up his list into 10 categories of gloom and doom - from Teenage Car Crash anthems to She-Hates-Me-I-Hate-Her ditties - the author pines away over musical elements before digging in to reveal the suicidal heart of each and every song - a list that includes artists as diverse as Joy Division, Bobby Darin, Counting Crows, Evanescence, Bruce Springsteen and Barry Manilow.

Complete with a ranked countdown from 52 to 1 and wonderfully dreary black and white line drawings throughout, I Hate Myself and Want to Die is a must-have compilation of melodic misery - and a perfect Christmas gift.

Customer Reviews

The best book about depressing songs you'll ever read
What? No 'Gloomy Sunday' in the contents list? Actually, a great chunk of the introduction is devoted to the song that's probably sparked more urban myths than any other, so that's OK. Tom Reynolds takes us through a selection of songs with good singers but terrible lyrics, terrible versions of good songs, epics that mean to be profound but only end up over-pronated (that's flat-footed, to you!) and the ultimate - the perfect storm - the songs with extra bombast. It's very astute and funny, although some of the American references will go over the heads of UK readers, and I look forward to the possibility of someone releasing a CD of these songs so you can sing along with a hairbrush in one hand and a cutthroat razor in the other.

Dark, funny and educational!!!!
Being the morbid little person I am, I saw this book and it just seemed to reach out it's grubby hands to me. I was expecting something dark and (surprisingly) depressing. What I received was a very witty and amusing book, I found myself laughing out loud numerous times. How could I have got this book so wrong.

Tom Reynolds covers a whole host of genres in this book, covering five or so decades. It was interesting to jump from The Carpenters "Goodbye To Love" to Metallica's "One".

If like me, you like to learn about musicians and artists. Then you will be pleased with this book. While it goes into detail about the meaning of the songs and how they came to be. For instance Tom explains the meaning of the Kiss song "Beth". Apparently, one of the band members wives became obsessive with phoning her husband during their rehearsals, thus resulting in the band writing a song about the experience...like you do.

With other titillating musical facts and dark humour, this is most likely a book that you will pull out of the bookcase to read again. Or else recommend to a friend.

tears (and fears and beers) of laughter
Rarely do I read a book that makes me cry with laughter on the train home. This book is for anyone who is or used to be into Hard Rock, Metal or Goth. Or for that matter The Carpenters. It's all in here from Tell Laura I Love her and Teen Angel to My Immortal (where thye inspiration to my header comes from ) and Bonnie Tyler's "masterpeice" Total Eclipse of the Heart.

So why not 5 stars? Well some of the songs are a little obscure, and the musical deconstruction gets very technical. As another reviewer said, a CD would be great and including one in the book (difficult I know for permisson purposes) would have been an excellent touch. Nonetheless for 10 quid you really cant go wrong.