Touch Me I'm Sick
"Touch Me I'm Sick" | ||||
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Reciprocal Recording, Seattle, Washington | ||||
Genre | Grunge | |||
Length | 2:33 | |||
Label | Sub Pop | |||
Songwriter(s) | Mark Arm, Steve Turner, Dan Peters, Matt Lukin | |||
Producer(s) | Jack Endino, Mudhoney | |||
Mudhoney singles chronology | ||||
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Music video | ||||
"Touch Me I'm Sick" on YouTube |
"Touch Me I'm Sick" is a song by the American
When it was first released, "Touch Me I'm Sick" was a hit on
Origins and recording
According to Mudhoney vocalist Mark Arm, "Touch Me I'm Sick" originated from a discussion with Sub Pop owner Bruce Pavitt, who "said: 'Hey, you sing about dogs. You sing about being sick. You got a shtick, it'll take you to the top.' And he basically gave us five chords, but he said don't use more than three within one song."[2] Arm has also described "Touch Me I'm Sick" as a catchphrase around which the band built a song.[3]
Mudhoney recorded the song at Seattle's
Music and lyrics
"Touch Me I'm Sick" has a straightforward
Critics have noted a
Arm's lyrics, according to critic Steve Huey, are a rant about "disease, self-loathing, angst, and dirty sex".
Another feature of "Touch Me I'm Sick" that has been commented upon is Arm's vocals. Huey refers to them as a "hysterical screech", and "snarling, demonic howls".[1][10] Similarly, the music writer Sleazegrinder compares Arm's singing to "a gargly, half-mad howl, the panicky yelp of a rabid dog falling down a well".[14] Creswell considers Arm's "overboard" vocals to mock a variety of rock stereotypes: the punk snarl, the "woozy slur" of hard rock, garage rock "yea-ahs", R&B-style wails and a "Jerry Lee Lewis shudder".[13]
Release and reception
"Touch Me I'm Sick" was released on August 1, 1988, as a
According to Pavitt, "It was just a limited edition, maybe 800 pieces, but people all over America started raving about it. People that we really respected."
Sonic Youth cover
Prior to the release of the "Touch Me I'm Sick" single, Pavitt sent a five-song Mudhoney tape to New York
Legacy
"I got really depressed ... I was just going to be a stripper for the rest of my life and never have a band again. But I heard Mudhoney's 'Touch Me I'm Sick' one night, and I was saved. I knew that I could scream on cue like that."
— Courtney Love on her decision to give up stripping and pursue a career in music[21]
Following the success of the "Touch Me I'm Sick" single in the Seattle area, Sub Pop positioned Mudhoney as the flagship band of their roster and heavily promoted the group.[22] The band's early material received airplay on college radio and influenced many local musicians, including Kurt Cobain of Nirvana.[12] In a few years, many Seattle grunge bands signed to major labels and broke into the mainstream, achieving mass popularity. Although Mudhoney never attained this level of mainstream acceptance, according to AllMusic's Mark Deming, the band's "indie-scene success laid the groundwork for the movement that would (briefly) make Seattle, WA, the new capital of the rock & roll universe".[23]
Since its release, "Touch Me I'm Sick" has been accorded classic status within the grunge genre.[9] Writing for AllMusic, Steve Huey described the song as "the ultimate grunge anthem" and "a crucial and vastly influential touchstone in the evolution of the grunge movement, virtually defining the term".[1][10] For its northwestern rock exhibit, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame requested the song's original lyrics sheet. Since it did not exist—Arm briefly considered making a fake one by writing down the lyrics, crumpling the sheet, and then burning the edges—the band instead donated Turner's old Big Muff pedals.[24] First editions of the 7" itself are considered collector's items, "routinely command[ing] three-figure prices", according to Louder magazine in 2016.[14]
"Touch Me I'm Sick" remains Mudhoney's most popular song. Joe Ehrbar called it "the song most of us would come to know [the band] by".[7] A staple of Mudhoney's live set ever since its release, Arm says the band hasn't tired of performing the song: "The beauty of it is that it’s two minutes long. It’s not like it’s 'Free Bird' where you have to suffer through 10 minutes of playing it every night."[14] He considers the track to be Mudhoney's highwater mark,
"There's something special about that first single, we were never quite able to recapture that sound. I don't know if it was the guitars or the recording. It was just a really gnarly, gnarly guitar sound. ... I think it had more to do with the actual electromagnetic chemistry of what was going through our amps that day. It was just a cool, fried-out sound."[25]
The song was referenced in the 1992 film Singles, which is set against the backdrop of the Seattle grunge scene. The fictional band in the film, Citizen Dick, perform a song called "Touch Me I'm Dick"—a wordplay on Mudhoney's song.[4] In 2003, Charles Peterson published a book of photography titled Touch Me I'm Sick. It features black-and-white photographs of bands (including Mudhoney) and concerts, and focuses on the alternative music scene of the 1980s and 1990s.[26]
Accolades
Year | Publication/ author |
Country | Accolade | Rank |
---|---|---|---|---|
2002 | NME | United Kingdom | 100 Greatest Singles of All Time[27] | 99 |
2004 | Kerrang! | United Kingdom | 666 Songs You Must Own (Grunge)[28] | 5 |
2005 | Blender
|
United States | The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born (1981–2005)[29] | 396 |
2006 | Toby Creswell | Australia | 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time[30] | N/A |
2010 | Robert Dimery | United States | 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die[31] | N/A |
2014 | Paste | United States | The 50 Best Grunge Songs[32] | 8 |
Track listing
7" single (SP18)
Both songs credited to Mark Arm, Steve Turner, Dan Peters and Matt Lukin.
- "Touch Me I'm Sick" – 2:33
- "Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More" – 3:35
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f Huey, Steve. "Touch Me I'm Sick" song review. AllMusic. Retrieved November 27, 2010.
- ^ Maslin, Janet. " Successful in Seattle: Turning Grunge to Gold". The New York Times. November 8, 2006. Retrieved July 1, 2007.
- ^ Azerrad, p. 426
- ^ a b c d Cantu, Bob. "Flipside Interviews Mudhoney". Flipside. February 1998. Retrieved July 1, 2007.
- ^ "Left of the Dial". Episode 6, Seven Ages of Rock. BBC Worldwide & VH1 Classic. 2007.
- ^ Higgins, JR. "Mudhoney: No Nonsense Seattle Supergrunge". Backlash. December 1988.
- ^ a b c d Ehrbar, Joe. "In Fuzz We Trust: Mudhoney". The Rocket. January 2000.
- ^ March to Fuzz liner notes Archived 2007-06-25 at the Wayback Machine . "Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More" recording information. Sub Pop. Retrieved July 1, 2007.
- ^ a b Barr, Brian J. Mudhoney promotional biography for Under a Billion Suns. Sub Pop. March 7, 2006.
- ^ a b c Huey, Steve. "Review: Superfuzz Bigmuff Plus Early Singles". AllMusic. Retrieved June 30, 2007.
- ^ a b c March to Fuzz liner notes Archived 2007-06-25 at the Wayback Machine . "Touch Me I'm Sick" recording information. Sub Pop. Retrieved July 1, 2007.
- ^ a b "Sub Pop's first single: Mudhoney's 'Touch Me I'm Sick'". BBC's Seven Ages of Rock. Retrieved July 2, 2007.
- ^ a b c Ulrich, John M.; Harris, Andrea L. Genxegesis: Essays on Alternative Youth (sub)culture. Popular Press. 2003. pp. 86–87.
- ^ a b c d Sleazegrinder. "The Story Behind The Song: Mudhoney – Touch Me I'm Sick". Louder. December 14, 2016. Retrieved on July 31, 2019.
- ^ a b Azerrad, pp. 426–27
- ^ "Touch Me Im Sick"/"Sweet Young Thing". Sub Pop. Retrieved July 1, 2007.
- Dazed & Confused. 1994.
- ^ LaVella, Mike. "Maximum Rocknroll Interviews Mudhoney". Maximum Rocknroll. August 1990. Retrieved July 1, 2007.
- ^ Azerrad, p. 428
- ^ Allison, Bradford: Review: Daydream Nation (Deluxe Edition), Prefix magazine, 13 June 2007. Retrieved on 1 July 2007.
- ISBN 978-1-84449-098-1
- ^ Olsen, Matt. "The Story of Sub Pop (or How I Lost the Weight and How I Plan to Keep It Off)". Sub Pop. Retrieved April 28, 2008.
- ^ Deming, Mark. Mudhoney biography. AllMusic. Retrieved April 28, 2008.
- ^ "Generation Spokesmodel". B.B Gun No. 4. 1997.
- ^ La Briola, John. "Here's Mud in Your Ear". Westword. August 2001.
- ^ "Touch Me I'm Sick by Charles Peterson". Powell's Books. Retrieved May 4, 2008.
- ^ "100 Greatest Singles of All Time". NME. November 2002.
- ^ "666 Songs You Must Own". Kerrang!. November 2004.
- Blender. October 2005. Retrieved August 24, 2009.
- ISBN 1-56025-915-9
- ISBN 978-1-84403-684-4.
- ^ Danaher, Michael (August 4, 2014). "The 50 Best Grunge Songs". Paste.
References
- Azerrad, Michael (2001). ISBN 0-316-78753-1