I Hate Myself and Want to Die: The 52 Most Depressing Songs You’ve Ever Heard

by Tom Reynolds

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY - May 26th, 2006 - "Ten Things We Love This Week"
3. 'I HATE MYSELF AND I WANT TO DIE,' by Tom Reynolds
This roundup of 52 of the most maudlin songs ever penned, from Manilow to Metallica, will move you to tears of despair — or shrieks of helpless laughter.

PLAYBOY - "There must be a section of Tom Reynolds's record collection that wards off disc jockeys like a cross repels vampires. The writer/TV producer's steep descent into depressing pop music, I Hate Myself and Want to Die is a humorous song-by-song analysis of the most egregious examples of audio torture. Its title may sound like a hackneyed VH1 special, but Reynolds steps above pointless banter by demonstrating some serious scholarship, exposing gut-wrenching stories behind these songs like the telling fact that the writers of "Without You," covered by Mariah Carey, both hung themselves....Overall, his picks are solid and stick to chart-topping tragedies, ranging from the Billie Holiday lynching tune "Strange Fruit" ("Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze") to a prescient analysis of Johnny Cash's superior cover of Trent Reznor's "Hurt." Reynolds also manages to sneak in some unknown misfires, like his number one pick "The Christmas Shoes," a Christian adult contemporary Christmas song (already depressing) about poor kids buying slippers for their terminally ill mom to wear in heaven (kill me already).

NEW MUSIC EXPRESS - "Full of premium trivia and pinpoint pomposity pricking, Reynolds has made comedy gold from the full base metal of misery."

WHAT'S ON IN LONDON - "A sustained and superbly observed insight into some of rock music's most memorable follies, it is an absolute must-read. Brilliant."

UNCUT Magazine - "Tom Reynolds, an American TV producer who manages to combine the wit of Dave Barry with the musical tastes of a bath towel, takes a simple concept and pulls great big inappropriate belly laughs from it....Genius."

Anne Stephenson, THE REPUBLIC - "To write a book like this, you need a working knowledge of music recorded over the past 70 years and an astute and merciless sense of humor. Tom Reynolds is our man.".

Rob Lester, EDGE MAGAZINE - "What makes this book so worthwhile and more than just cathartic (oh, it is that!) is the humor. Reynolds’ language is colorful and clever and his greatest skills are sarcasm and funny, funny exaggeration for effect... Smug? Absolutely. But it’s mostly a hoot."

PUCKNATION - "I Hate Myself and Want to Die, is one of the most brilliant looks at music and popular culture I've read in a long time. This collection of essays rips through music with ludicrous comments, humor and sarcasm. Reynolds’ knack for timing and wit allows him to tear seemlessly through these songs, with great results....An instant classic and perfect bathroom reading."

ROCKNWORLD - "Don'tcha just love discovering a book that is too funny to be read in public, that makes eating or drinking while reading it a sure way to choke & die? What makes the subject matter of this book even better is its importance & truth.....His treatments of Evanescence's entry on the list & Metallica are so funny that I wish I could quote the entire chapters here."

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Humor, Pop Culture, Reference, Trivia, Psychology

254 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

"There are many great humour writers alive now. If essays in particular and a savage outlook are your thing, here’s the best. Read the collected Merrill Markoe, Jon Ronson, Mark Steel, Cintra Wilson, Dave Barry, Craig Brown, John Crace, Tim Dowling, Guy Browning, Patricia Marx, Will Ferguson, Bill Bryson, TOM REYNOLDS, Paul Rudnick, Ian Frazier, John O’Farrell, Armando Iannucci and Nicholas Lezard....Tom Reynolds’ I HATE MYSELF AND WANT TO DIE is a painful analysis of the American pop ballad, a comedy classic."
- Toronto Star columnist Heather Mallick in THE GUARDIAN, June 25, 2013

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: "Ten Things We Love This Week"
3. I HATE MYSELF AND I WANT TO DIE, by Tom Reynolds
"This roundup of 52 of the most maudlin songs ever penned, from Manilow to Metallica, will move you to tears of despair — or shrieks of helpless laughter."

DANNY HUTTON, co-founder-THREE DOG NIGHT: "A cunning, devastating autopsy . . . I found myself strangely attracted."

SEB HUNTER, author, HELL BENT FOR LEATHER and ROCK ME, AMADEUS: "Here is incontrovertible proof that pop stars are all healthy, well-adjusted individuals. I laughed and self-harmed in equal measure."

PLAYBOY: "There must be a section of Tom Reynolds's record collection that wards off disc jockeys like a cross repels vampires. The writer/TV producer's steep descent into depressing pop music, I Hate Myself and Want to Die is a humorous song-by-song analysis of the most egregious examples of audio torture. Its title may sound like a hackneyed VH1 special, but Reynolds steps above pointless banter by demonstrating some serious scholarship."

ANNE STEPHENSON, THE REPUBLIC: "To write a book like this, you need a working knowledge of music recorded over the past 70 years and an astute and merciless sense of humor. Tom Reynolds is our man.".

ROB LESTER, EDGE MAGAZINE: "What makes this book so worthwhile and more than just cathartic (oh, it is that!) is the humor. Reynolds’ language is colorful and clever and his greatest skills are sarcasm and funny, funny exaggeration for effect... Smug? Absolutely. But it’s mostly a hoot."

PUCKNATION: "I Hate Myself and Want to Die is one of the most brilliant looks at music and popular culture I've read in a long time. This collection of essays rips through music with ludicrous comments, humor and sarcasm. Reynolds’ knack for timing and wit allows him to tear seemlessly through these songs, with great results....An instant classic and perfect bathroom reading."

PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY: "Thoughtful and vivid. . . . This should start many debates among pop music die-hards."

NEW MUSIC EXPRESS (NME): "Full of premium trivia and pinpoint pomposity pricking, Reynolds has made comedy gold from the full base metal of misery."

WHAT'S ON IN LONDON: "A sustained and superbly observed insight into some of rock music's most memorable follies, it is an absolute must-read. Brilliant."

UNCUT Magazine: "Tom Reynolds, an American TV producer who manages to combine the wit of Dave Barry with the musical tastes of a bath towel, takes a simple concept and pulls great big inappropriate belly laughs from it....Genius."

ROCKNWORLD: "Don'tcha just love discovering a book that is too funny to be read in public, that makes eating or drinking while reading it a sure way to choke & die? What makes the subject matter of this book even better is its importance & truth.....His treatments of Evanescence's entry on the list & Metallica are so funny that I wish I could quote the entire chapters here."

UNDER THE RADAR: "Reynold's casual, comedic prose suits the subject well, conjuring up more than a few laugh-out-loud moments."

FEATURED ARTICLES/REVIEWS
Esquire; Newsday; Rolling Stone (Germany); New Music Express; Macleans (Canada); Los Angeles Times; Boston Herald; Austin Chronicle; Minneapolis Star Tribune; Arizona Republic; BBC News, RTE 1, Guardian UK, The Independent, Vogue, Sunday Mail (AU). Under the Radar Magazine; Paperc

Reviews

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the way Tom Reynolds writes! This book is laugh-aloud hilarious! Even if you don't know some of the songs (I knew about two thirds of them) you still find yourself laughing over his descriptions of them. He's a master of the comic metaphor and simile. My favorite chapter was on Richard Harris' version of "MacArthur Park"-- priceless!! On a more serious note, along the way I also found myself picking up information on how a song is composed, which was interesting. I also loved the illustrations. That sad-eyed, droopy, Wednesday Addams lookalike added emphasis to the depressing quality of the songs. I wish he'd write a sequel: I'm a Glutton for Punishment: 52 More Depressing Songs. I must get myself a copy of this book to dip into when I'm feeling low. It's a great pick-me-up!

[Oriana · Rating 3 out of 5]

bought for $1 at the art book fair. I'm ten pages in and it's already hilarious & awesome.

*****

Aw, this book is very clever & funny. It takes fifty-two songs and examines them fairly thoroughly, giving their history, who wrote / performed them, lyrical and musical explications, why they're depressing, etc. He's a bit over-enamored with his own sense of humor, though; you can tell that he's writing to make himself sound very witty and smart, which can be a bit grating. He also uses pretty predictable construction of musical metaphors (like "The song ends with a flurry of reverse piano figures whipping around, as if the entire bird flock just soared into the Transamerica building) and artistic augmented comparisons (like _____ sings like a poor man's _____ on drugs / being run through a cheese grater / falling out of a helicopter, etc). But I did laugh aloud fairly often while reading, so that's pretty good.

His song choices are pretty varied; from the predictable ("Teen Angel," "Strange Fruit") to the obscure ("The Christmas Shoes," "In the Year 2525"), from old standards ("The Rose," "Tell Laura I Love Her") to new-ish hits ("The Freshman," "Prayers for Rain"). He introduces ideas like the Quantum Tragedy Paradigm ("the shorter the relationship between two people, the more overwrought and tragic the song that describes it") and the Perfect Storm ("mortality plus misguided passion," plus generally a horrifying diva screaming it out). There are very good goth-girl-about-to-off-herself illustrations throughout, and after I finished reading I had a whole bunch of new songs to download. So all in all a nice book to read in distracted small pieces, like on smoke breaks or on the crapper.

[Bettina · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I Mope, Therefore I Am"

Why did I give 5 stars to a book that is clearly not one of the great works of literature? Because it is, considering its genre, something that fully achieves its aim. It made me laugh out loud, kept me entertained from start to finish, and did so without using any "trashy" humour. It made me think "THAT IS SO TRUE" and "I'm glad I'm not the only one who overanalyses song lyrics and then gets worked up about them". Above all, the level of detail in this satire makes it perfectly clear that Tom Reynolds loves music. He mocks it because he knows it. In fact, you end up picking up interesting information about how songs are composed and marketed along the way. After years of owning this book, I still pick it up every once in a while and read a chapter when I need something to cheer me up.

Of course, the book goes through some of the typical cliches (e.g. MacArthur Park), which have been mocked...well...ever since a person first wrote the lines "someone left a cake out in the rain/ I don't think that I can take it". However, this book moves beyond surface mockery of the lyrics into the small points, the nerdy details of instruments included in the background, voices, including the fundamental question why we as human beings are drawn to wallowing in self-pity. It also includes some less well-known works that really, every connoisseur of drama should know. If you don't know them, it does not take away from the pleasure of reading the respective chapters. Neatly organised by categories (e.g. "I was a teenage car crash"), it includes something for everyone. My only warning would be that you will never be able to listen to certain songs the same way again. Then again, with lyrics such as "you used to captivate me by your resonating light" -light does not resonate, thank you, Tom Reynolds- did you really want to?

[Goth Gone Grey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those top-shelf books that I return to when I need something silly that doesn't require much thought to absorb. Feeling under the weather? Tired from life? Time to read it again.

The book is filled with descriptive gems like "...this grumpy dirge still finds its way on to FM radio playlists and will reliably crawl out of your car speakers like a balding slug at the exact same spot on the highway where your cell phone cuts out." It echoes (and indeed, replicates) some of Dave Barry's similar work on describing bad songs in hilarious fashion.

Deep psychological analysis? Nah, none to be found, but if depressing music makes things worse, the humor in mocking them makes things so much better. The illustrations are a lovely touch.

Disclaimer: I know and can happily sing along with some of the songs listed herein. Much shame, and pride, co-mingled.

[Jesus Hills · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had promise. This book could have been so much more. This book should have been shorter. It started out entertaining but turned into a repetitive slog. The joke structure--akin to your run of them mill Pitchfork music review--was a rinse and repeat mess that alternated metaphors. Reviews of the book claim that it was well-researched and for the most part it was, but based on what I already knew about certain songs and artists there appeared to be some informational cherry-picking. Naturally, I was reading this for entertainment value over factual information, but still felt myself having to swallow a few "but what abouts" while reading.

The biggest problem with this book is the one that the author purports to be avoiding. He swears that he wanted to write about songs that were depressing in nature (as opposed to sad), but he ends up writing about songs that were depressingly bad for the most part. This leads me to believe that about half of the book is filler, and Reynold set out to write a funny book about depressing songs and hit a wall halfway through the project. I guess that is the trouble with writing a book that is founded in subjectivity maybe?

I am glad this is finally off my to-read list. It has been there for a long time, but I now see why my subconscious told me to choose other books over this one.

[Beth Summerour · Rating 2 out of 5]

A funny compilation of the most depressing songs ever. I heard about this book on a rock radio station. They are all criticized in some way, which is a shame cause I like some of those songs. He seperates the 52 songs into different catagories, such as: I Was A Teenage Car Crash; I Hate Myself and Want to Die; I'm Tring to Be Profound and Touching, But Really Suck At It; If I Sing About Drugs, People Will Take Me Seriously; She Hates Me, I Hate Her; Horrifying Remakes of Already Depressing Songs; I'm Telling a Story Nobody Wants to Hear; I Had No Idea That Song Was So Morbid; I Mope, Therefore I Am; and lastly, Perfect Storms.

[The Local Spooky Hermit · Rating 2 out of 5]

Idk what i expected from a book about music. Its not like I'm interested into deepdives about music soooo. Not my thing. 🤷‍♀️ also didn't find it funny oh well

[Aurora Dimitre · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this one. It reminds me a little of some of the shitty essays I write about music, and I liked how clearly the author does love music, even some of the songs in this book, and I liked how he discussed the whole thing. And it was funny, man, he brings up some good points. A good time overall.

[PJ · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book is really just a music snob complaining about songs and/or artists he doesn't like.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remembered skimming through this book as a senior in high school, and after ending up falling down a Google hole of depressing songs, I remembered this and bought it, wanting to read it again. As the cover and general irreverent tone of the marketing blurbs would tell you, this book is indeed pretty funny. There are lots of places where I laughed out loud, and the book was a very entertaining, breezy read.

My problem arises from the fact that Tom Reynolds' criteria for "depressing" seems nebulous and changes from song to song. There are certainly lots of songs here that are sad (Johnny Cash's "Hurt", Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again (Naturally)"), but equally he seems to be lambasting songs that are so incredibly grim and melodramatic that their sadness is muted ("Honey" by Bobby Goldsboro, "Artificial Flowers" by Bobby Darin), and songs that he simply just finds overproduced and obnoxiously sentimental ("I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston). Reynolds succeeds more with the first two categories of song, and I especially enjoyed his writeups of "deceptively happy" songs, a subgenre I've always enjoyed, and was surprised at some of the songs he left out (no "Timothy" by The Buoys?). He also points out some really spooky and interesting songs I'd never heard of before, like "DOA" by Bloodrock.

But I fail to see how a chintzy Whitney Houston song or an overproduced Bonnie Tyler number ("Total Eclipse of the Heart") could be considered "depressing". There's even a dig at The Doors song "The End," which I suppose could be considered eerie, but depressing? Are these songs depressingly melodramatic and overproduced? Sure. Are they depressing because they're such banal, terrible songs? That could be argued, too (although I love Jim Steinman), but it seems to get away from the central concept of emotionally depressing songs, and Reynolds' introduction isn't very clear at delineating what kind of criteria he was using for the book, so a lot of these pieces just read like an angry music blogger snidely shitting on songs he doesn't like, which is fine, just not what I wanted out of a book about depressing songs.

At the end of the day, it was an entertaining read, and when it was firing on all cylinders, it both made me laugh and turned me on to some really hilariously soul-grindingly sad songs. I just wish he stuck to the program a bit better.

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, FWIW, the author is witty and funny. But with this title, I am shocked that the following songs were not included, which leads me to the conclusion that the author may just be simply too young to adequately address the topic he's selected for his missive here:

-Dust In The Wind (Kansas)
-Freebird (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
-Angie (The Rolling Stones)
-Slipped Away (Avril Lavigne)
-Slipping Through My Fingers (ABBA)
-My Father's Chair (Rick Springfield)
-Mother Father (Journey)
-Love Hurts (Nazareth)
-Against All Odds (Phil Collins - he picked on him for "In the Air Tonight," but I think my selection is a MUCH more heart-rending song...)
-Love is Like Oxygen (Sweet)
-Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd)
-Best of My Love (The Eagles)
-Time of Your Life (Green Day)
-Wake Me Up when September Ends (Green Day)
-Deja Vu All Over Again (Neil Young)
-Castles Made of Sand (Jimi Hendrix)
-She's Leaving Home (The Beatles)
-Tears in Heaven (Eric Clapton)
-My Immortal (Evanescence)
-Black (Pearl Jam)
-That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be (Carly Simon)
-Fire and Rain (James Taylor)
-Sandra (Barry Manilow)
-Epitaph (Judas Priest)
-We'll Burn the Sky (Scorpions)
-Still Loving You (Scorpions)
-Patience (Guns 'n' Roses)
-Fade to Black (Metallica)(at least he pegged "One"!!!)
-Save Me (Queen)
-These Are The Days Of Our Lives (Queen)
-The Show Must Go On (Queen)
-Changes (Black Sabbath)
-Solitude (Black Sabbath)(are you beginning to see a pattern here?)
-She's Gone (Black Sabbath)
-Hand of Doom (Black Sabbath)
-In Memory (latter-day Black Sabbath with Glenn Hughes)
aaand the mother of all depressing songs:
-Wheels of Confusion (Black Sabbath)

Need I say any more!?!?!

[Joanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a lot of fun. The songs are grouped into categories such as "Teen car crash songs" "If I sing about drugs people with think I'm deep" "I'm telling a story no one wants to hear" etc. There were some songs in here I'd never heard of but the author's writing style was funny enough that it didn't matter if I knew the song or not.

The author breaks down each song and talks about both the music and the lyrics and how they combine to make a song depressing or not. He talks about how sometimes it's the performer that makes a song depressing-for example, he thinks that the Nine Inch Nails version of "Hurt" is depressing whereas the Johnny Cash one is moving and sad-he's right. There were other songs that while I may find them sad, I don't necessarily find them depressing but with others he was dead on. He ranks "Christmas Shoes" as the number one most depressing song of all times and I have to say I agree. I definitley want to check out his other book about the creepiest songs of all time too.

[Cami · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apparently, I'm a little sensitive when it comes to my love of music.
Reynolds can be a little harsh at times about the insipid nature of some songs. His writing is quite cynical, but I've got to give him kudos for "listening to every one of [The Cure's:] albums, beginning with 1980's Seventeen Seconds." For a non-Cure fan, that is a feat unimaginable.

I did have to laugh about the songs listed in the chapter entitled "I'm Telling a Story That Nobody Wants to Hear"; I hadn't heard any of them.

I did laugh throughout this book. The author is funny. He takes to task songs performed by (though not necessarily written by) Phil Collins, Evanescence, Metallica, Mariah Carey, and The Carpenters. He targets songs such as Total Eclipse of the Heart, Alone Again (Naturally), Teen Angel, Don't Cry Out Loud, You Don't Bring Me Flowers and Send in the Clowns.

His number one most depressing song on a list of 52?

The Christmas Shoes by Newsong

[Derrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author writes about 52 songs that he believes to be the most depressing songs in existence. The book is loosely divided into chapters by subject. Each song gets an introduction, some analysis of the lyrics and music, and then a "what makes it depressing" discussion.

The author writes with sarcasm and humor, and he doesn't always hate the songs under review. However, his definition of "depressing" does seem to vary from dark subject matter like death to simply a song he's tired of hearing so many times over the years. I was familiar with many of the songs, but not all of them and thus felt the need to go to YouTube on a few. I didn't find them quite as depressing in every case as the author does.

Still, it's a mildly entertaining and sometimes informative book about pop music -- a book that takes a different approach than usual. It's no pop-culture classic, but it's worth the short amount of time it takes to read it if you're interested in that sort of thing.

[Mme Forte · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have often wondered "What the hell is wrong with people?" when I hear the opening notes of a song on the radio or somewhere that is filled with misguided metaphors, key changes you can see coming like an artillery shell from a distant hill that deliver the musical equivalent of death and destruction, and/or whiny/breathy/raspy vocals meant to convey real emotion but that only bring irritation and exasperation.
This book doesn't answer that question, but it made me feel less alone in my loathing for songs like "I Will Always Love You" (the Whitney Houston version), "Seasons in the Sun", and "THE CHRISTMAS SHOES" (caps mine), which almost makes me hate Christmas and has made me into a shaky, jittery radio listener during the holiday season, constantly alert for any sign of the horrific tune and doomsday-prepped to change the station on a nanosecond's notice.
Misery loves company and I have found some.

[Mohit · Rating 1 out of 5]

if this book was meant to be comic. okay, its just not my kind of humour.

if not mostly I hate this book, and want it to burn.

most useless and un-informed book ever written. I doubt if the author even heard the songs he is talking about.

I picked up the book, because I have always wondered why people listen to depressing songs. but i did not think that looking at the frequency of some words in lyrics, or the title is what classified as depressing.

The author considers himself very wise, categorizing musical experimentation with sounds as depressing, slow music as depressing, and a lot more.

[Alex Cruse · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.
I did not intend to read this entire book today but it was a fun and easy read, just like Reynolds previous book about creepy songs. If you like the early music journalist inspired works by Chuck Klosterman then give this a try.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

A clever idea, but not well written.

[Tlingit · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to be honest, I really scanned this book in one night. It wasn't bad. In fact I enjoy Reynold's writing, how he can turn a phrase, the small things he digs up on his subject. I felt though that this book could have been easily edited down to a Cracked article. I like Cracked for the most part. I also like the writing most of the authors who pen their stories use.
I thought the subject would mine up some interesting songwriters, stories and songs. I know most of the songs. The fact is that I didn't find most of this book very interesting. Reynolds takes the song that's depressing, writes a one or two paragraph intro to it then in the next section breaks down the lyrics into a story that either tells the story of the song's lyrics and sometimes for some songs adds anecdotes about the song, it's background, it's writer or his own spin on the song. I wouldn't say that this book is nonfiction. It's mostly his opinion on these songs. So it's one sided.
Reynolds is funny mostly. Unfortunately this whole book spins on the premise that depressing songs are tiresome and annoying like that cousin in your family who claims they're mentally ill but you think they're crying for attention. Just like the sentiment I wrote, this book is based on a tired cliché of depressed people and depression is annoying after hearing about it too much. The sad thing is that this attitude is common. And this book, it's subject and subjects (mostly,) are common.
If he picked a subject that was more creative say, the facts behind urban myths or the relationships between bands and their songs, 9I know not very creative but I'm no writer,) I beieve he'd write a very engaging book. This book wasn't engaging to me though. Even the stories I hadn't herd, the songs I didn't know, I wasn't finding reading this book interesting enough to spend more than a second on most paragraphs. I was looking for a section of the book where he had a list of songs that were depressing but not tiresome when heard on the radio. Like Fastball's "The Way" or Concrete Blonde's "Joey", a contrast and explanation of why he thought certain songs were lasting as well as depressing would have really wrapped up the book well.
I was bummed. I thought I was going to be entranced by this book and it's subject. It ended up being as interesting as a well written newspaper article about a common crime.

[Jeannie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have such mixed feelings about this book. Firstly, I love the concept and was excited to finally get my hands on a copy to read. However, I was greatly disappointed to find that 85-90% of the songs discussed are from before I was even born - and I'm not a kid. In fact, the bulk of these tracks are things that my mom listened to before I was even a blip on the radar.

That said, equally disappointing is the fact that the author seems utterly clueless about any of the modern bands mentioned. He compares The Verve Pipe's Brian Vander Ark to Kurt Cobain, and the two sound NOTHING alike. He also calls one of the modern bands (I forget whom) "death metal" - there are no death metal bands mentioned in this book. I also find it odd that Ben Folds Five's "Brick" is included with an improper analysis, and it's even noted that the analysis is wrong.

Ultimately, I'm giving it a 3/5 because there's nothing wrong with the writing and the concept is intriguing, but I would enjoy an updated version that covers mostly material from the past 30 years. (Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks" is a shoe-in, ditto Nirvana's "I Hate Myself and I Want to Die," which should have been in this book.) So, for me personally, this was a 2/5.

[Leah Compston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gold. This book is gold. I haven't laughed so hard at a book in ages. Tom Reynolds reviews 52 incredibly depressing songs for us, gives us a brief history of the song, and tells us why they're depressing. This has the potential to be boring - without Tom Reynolds' wit. Here a just a couple of my favorite gems:

"... a song that does for piano ballads what the Hindenburg did for zeppelin travel."
"Cranked loud enough, it will cause whales to beach themselves."
"After a pause so pregnant it's having triplets, ..."
"If there ever was a recording that could substitute for Demerol, this is the one."
"It's also the only depressing song of note based on a samba beat, an incongruous musical choice akin to performing Megadeth in waltz time."
"As the 1960s got up to speed, numerous disturbing aspects were introduced to everyday life: assassinations, missile crises, Vietnam, riots, Charles Manson, and the twenty-minute drum solo."

I also enjoyed learning that Metallica wrote a song based on the truly terrible book "Johnny Got His Gun" (which a college friend encouraged me to read and I have still not forgiven him for). The song may be depressing, but it's miles better than the book, if only because it's shorter.

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

You maybe wouldn’t think a book with the title I Hate Myself and Want to Die would be a funny read, but it is. It’s VERY funny. Tom Reynolds finds 52 of the most grim songs ever written and committed to vinyl and promptly rips the songwriters and performers a new one for having had the audacity to inflict these depression-inducing dirges on our poor lugs!

While it’s debatable whether all of the songs deserve inclusions, and there are probably more deserving emo anthems out there which should have been featured instead, it was still, for me, worth the re-read of a book I had initially read some time ago now, and it had the same effect, causing me to LMAO on a number of occasions. Tom Reynolds has a way with words!

[AquaMoon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this partly entertaining, but then I have the Gen-X Advantage of being familiar with at least a few of the tunes listed in this book. A lot of them are still before my time, though. So the writeups, although hilarious, fell flat because I had no visual (audio) reference point of basis. And I didn't really feel like pulling up my tunes app to listen along as I read. Call it lazy.

That said, I don't think this book would hold up out there today, in 2025. I'd suggest the author update it, but books like these are like technology: As soon as they're out in the world, they're obsolete.

[Jodie Ponto · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the funniest books and one of the best music books I have ever read. This book was the theme of a recent tour, we read it aloud as a band and listened to all the songs it skewered and it was such a joy. If you like music and laughing a lot this book is for you. Higher than highly recommended.

[James Doughty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hilarious but insightful

Reynolds pulls no punches in his demolition of 52 songs whose reputations as depression triggers precede them. Each essay delves into the background of the song and its best known performers. The prose is packed with humorous asides and exaggerated comparisons.

[Luce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very funny.
His unique type of Satire is completely on point.
Many laugh out loud moments.
Not recommended for in-public reading; people will see the title and worry about you and also be very concerned as you laugh reading a book with this title!

[Matthew Hodge · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slight with some amusing moments. But my biggest problem is that Reynolds can't seem to make up his mind. He wants to talk about why the songs are depressing *and* make fun of them at the same time.

However, his making fun of them then takes the edge off the depressing part. Sigh ...

[Steph (stephjadeonline) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pages dedicated to The Cure had me laughing out loud. I too enjoying dressing as Nosferatu and sneaking into fields to suck the blood out of cattle.

[Charles Yoder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fairly interesting but the author's opinions and mine differed on some songs and artists, and some i have never heard of.

[Noah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Misogynist, and toxically masculine author. Good have been good but gross.