Touch Me I'm Sick - Music and Lyrics

Music and Lyrics

"Touch Me I'm Sick" has a straightforward garage punk structure with a simple repeating power chord riff played at a high tempo. This is accompanied by a blunt bass line and frenetic drumming. The song's dirty sound was produced using an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff distortion pedal, which is augmented by a second guitar providing more distortion. Music writer Brian J. Barr referred to this noisy sound as "the sonic equivalent of an amplified comb scraping against paper".

Critics have noted a Stooges influence in "Touch Me I'm Sick", typical of Mudhoney's early material. Turner said: "In retrospect, it's The Yardbirds' 'Happenings Ten Years Time Ago' by way of The Stooges' 'Sick of You'. At the time I was trying for the stuttering R&B guitar of The Nights and Days." The song is also reminiscent of the hardcore punk of Black Flag. In his book Loser: The Real Seattle Music Story, Clark Humphrey accuses the song of being a copy of "The Witch" by The Sonics. The band have dismissed this claim, and questioned the writer's knowledge of music.

Arm's lyrics, according to critic Steve Huey, are a rant about "disease, self-loathing, angst, and dirty sex". In an essay called "'Touch Me I'm Sick': Contagion as Critique in Punk and Performance Art", Catherine J. Creswell suggests that some of the lyrics refer to AIDS. According to Creswell, "In declaring 'Well, I'm diseased and I don't mind' and changing the final refrain to 'Fuck Me, I'm Sick!' the speaker declares himself to be the viral, 'AIDS-bearing,' 'polluting' person of contemporary fantasy". Creswell, who also believes the song parodies the theme of seduction in contemporary rock music, points to lyrics that refer to impotence ("If you don't come, if you don't come, if you don't come, you'll die alone!") and violent possession or forcing ("I'll make you love me till the day you die!"). However, Arm says that he had not put much thought into the lyrics; while performing the song in concerts, he sometimes changes them to amuse himself.

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". Journalist Joe Ehrbar says that Arm begins the song with a "burp", before singing with a "nasally howl". 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".