I have decided that if I have to listen to one more guy talking on his cell phone in the stall of a public bathroom, I will kill myself. One more MIDI version of “When the Saints Go Marching In” wafting over me like a fecal mist, one more argument over who punched who at the wedding interrupting my enjoyment of the latest ballpoint portrait of Bush as Hitler, and I will flap my wings against the streetlight for the very last time.

The will to survive is strong in me, however, and I know I may resist this urge. Like a man drowning, I might lose control of my limbs and flail myself back into this vale of tears. I have, therefore, compiled a collection of songs that I call “The Bitter End Mix,” a dark hoard of tunes designed to maraud through my ear-buds, overpower all instincts of self-preservation and convince me beyond all doubt that life is not worth living, after all.

Assembling the Four Horsemen of the U2 Special Edition iPod with reaper-black finish and blood-red click wheel was a task more difficult than it might at first appear. These songs had to have no redeeming value whatsoever, nothing to pull me back from the brink, no happy associations to jolt me with the defibrillating paddles of nostalgia. This meant that celebrity efforts like Bruce Willis’s “The Return of Bruno” and anything by cast members of any incarnation of “Star Trek” (yes, including Data) were strictly off limits. The same was true of Morrissey’s “Kill Uncle.” Although it is one of the worst albums of all time, and it was released in perhaps the worst year of my life, it was only four years and three band members away from The Smiths.

“Sweet Freedom” by Michael McDonald would be a perfect push off the cliff were it not for its association with the 80s classic film “Running Scared” and the brilliant Web series “Yacht Rock.” Any release by John Tesh might fit the bill, but the sound of his voice reminds me of perhaps the wisest thing my father ever said to me: “Paul,” he said, “I heard that John Tesh fella interviewed on the radio the other day. Seems like a good guy, loves his wife. But I bought his tape and it made me want to drive my car into a tree.”

Of course, certain artists had to be left off the playlist for the sake of variety. How could I ever choose which Britney Spears or Velvet Revolver song to include? It would have been too easy to just download “Making Love…The Very Best of Air Supply” and call it a day.

What follows, then, are the 14 tracks of my final curtain, songs for when the chips are down and staying there. Looking at it now, I realize that this mix is dangerous. I don’t dare listen to it from beginning to end until the dreadful moment has come for me. In order to ensure that I don’t overlook the vital nature of the sequencing (as I might be apt to do when the carbon monoxide in the garage begins to suffocate my brain), I have engraved the words “NOT on shuffle” between Bono’s signature and Eve’s sinful apple on the back of my iPod. Finally, I have included some sound files from television in the playlist to fill my mind with ghastly imagery and drive the point fully home.

1.    Theme from “Taxi”—Right out of the gate, a grimy cab slouches its way toward 1970s Gotham, accompanied by the most depressing flute melody ever played. It is raining. And, to top everything, Tony Danza is behind the wheel.

2.    “Sonny Came Home” by Shawn Colvin—Oh, if only I could get the chorus from this song out of my head. It entered one day when I was selecting pickles in the grocery store, and it decided to stay there forever.

3.    “Crocodile Rock” by Elton John—The song begins innocently enough, but when John whines “Laaaaaaa. La-la-la-lala,” I am reminded of all the bullies who taunted and beat me on the elementary school playground. Davey Stokes, this song’s on here because of YOU!

4.    “Kiss On My List” by Hall & Oates—On the way home from CCD, puzzling over the Holy Trinity, this song came over the AM radio in my mother’s ’79 Chevy Impala and I realized, for the very first time in my life, that I could hate music.

5.    “A Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney & Wings—I don’t know if that’s a guitar or a keyboard, but it sounds like a robot with a mouthful of peanut butter. I’ve been known to listen to “The Perry Como Christmas Album” when the summer sun is shining, but when Paul McCartney starts singing “Ding, dong, ding, dong, ding,” he is mocking me.

6.    A joke from “Everybody Loves Raymond”—Any joke will do, along with the canned laughs that inevitably follow. Charon, the mythical boatman who will row me across the river Styx to Hell, calls to me from his boat, moaning “Paul…this show was very popular in your country…these jokes were the paragon of humor … Come with me, Paul, and I will show you what it means to laugh until you weep…”

7.    “Up!” by Shania Twain—The soundtrack to shopping in Wal-Mart, the scent of microwave popcorn in the air and almost getting creamed by a minivan in the overstuffed parking lot. I suppose it’s true, though: when you’re in Hell, you “can only go up from here.”

8.    “Silly Love Songs” by Paul McCartney & Wings—To quickly quash any optimism track seven may inspire, the disco strings, comatose piano tinkling and asinine chorus here will remind me of every minute I ever spent in the dentist’s chair. You can picture McCartney dreaming up the chorus for this song: “Let’s see now—there’s ‘Love Me Do’ and ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ and ‘She Loves You’ and ‘All My Loving’ and ‘And I Love Her’ and ‘It’s Only Love’ and ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.’ Why not have a go at the direct approach? ‘I love you’ ought to do it. Boy, I sure wish John were here…”  Is this the same man who wrote “Junk?” The Beatles are dead. Why should I yet live?

9.    Commercial for “Two and a Half Men”—This show exists. It really does.

10.    Commercial for those shoe inserts made of gel—To remind me that at least nobody in Hell is “gellin’.”

11.    “Let’s Roll” by Neil Young—For every time an unfathomable human tragedy has created a “Guernica,” it has created thousands of songs like this. “Let’s Roll” will bring to mind the candlelit broadcast of “America: A Tribute to Heroes,” which featured Bon Jovi, Faith Hill and so many, many others paying simultaneous tribute to the fallen and to America’s unquenchable need to be entertained. The Towers have fallen? What a perfect opportunity to hawk the new releases and tired classics of America’s talented recording artists … while letting freedom ring, of course. United we stand in line at Best Buy!

12.    “All For Love” by Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Sting—Did you know that Sting wrote a book?  Sting’s an author. And Sting sang on that Band-Aid Christmas song, too! Sting was in “Dune,” you know. Sting can do it all. Did you know Sting can play the lute? It’s really hard to play, but Sting can do it. Sting was in The Police. Sting just reunited them. Everyone’s glad Sting did. Rod Stewart wears pink leather pants. Bryan Adams is from Canada. The three musketeers of doom.

13.    “One Week” by Barenaked Ladies—Nobody ever really liked Barenaked Ladies. Not really. They only pretended to when they were in college. Coming in at unlucky number 13 is a song that will have me screaming “Chickety China, choking my Chinese chicken” as I bid adieu to my life.

14.    Theme from “The Waltons”—As I shuffle off this mortal coil, I’ll be crying over John-Boy. As Charon rows with one oar and smacks me upside the head with the other, and as the chained sufferers across the river wait to greet me, I’ll be remembering the smell of the pines on Walton’s mountain, the black licorice at Ike’s store, the dirt under my bare feet, Pa and Grampa working out on the mill, my loving mother making biscuits on the stove, and the laughter of my brothers and sisters filling a house that never really existed.

The Wire asked a number of area musicians, critics and fans to dig deep into the darkest recesses of their minds and reveal their most loathed and despised songs. It was no easy task, selecting from the vast reserves of heinous and putrescent tunes out there and fixing upon a single song to die to, especially since most sane people try to avoid thinking about these songs at all costs. But here’s what we came up with:

After a day of thinking it finally hit me: That stupid, stupid song “Axel F” by Crazy Frog. It’s like a techno beat from hell, with a vocal track that sounds like it was sung by a baby bouncing up and down in a moving shopping cart. —Gage Norris, The Wire writer and bassist for The Vegas Report

Until recently, I would have said “In the Mood” by Glenn Miller, having played it far too many times over the past 35 years to ever care if I played it again. But, recently that’s changed, which is a different story altogether. So, here’s the next one in line. A tune I absolutely loathe is “My Sharonna” by The Knack. I thought it was a dumb tune back when it was released in the ‘70s and age hasn’t made it any better. In fact, it sounds worse now. I’d rather eat powdered glass than ever hear this inane tune again. —Alan Chase, Jazz Universe columnist and saxophone player

“I Want to Be With You Always” by Lefty Frizzell. —Laurel Brauns, singer-songwriter

I love and play all kinds of music, but that band Hinder and their stupid power ballad—I think it’s called “Lips of an Angel”—drive me mad. That song makes me angry enough to beat up little children and then vomit on them. And I’m a sweet person in general. There is a reason the album consumers condemned bands like Warrant to reality shows and gas stations. We don’t want them and we don’t need them. We especially don’t need Hinder pretending to be Warrant 2.0 for the gullible youth who weren’t there when all those glee-club-member-vagina-sailors stabbed American music in the balls with their shit music! No song could ever make me want to kill myself, but “Lips of an Angel” could drive me to kill a lot of other people. Starting with Hinder. —Bob Beal, guitarist for The Screen

Most definitely, the Alan Parsons Project’s “Time.” This classic rock radio staple sounds like what would happen if Pink Floyd’s “Us and Them” broke up into “Me, On the Long Slow Slog Toward a Lonely Death.” The soporific melody has an unnaturally slowed-down effect on it, the aural equivalent of swimming through corn syrup wearing smoky fisheye lenses. —Michelle Moon, singer-songwriter

While in no way would I take my life because of it, I think “Hey Ya” by Outkast was irritating and overplayed a couple years ago. “Shake it like a Polaroid picture.” Uh...whatever. I’ll take Otis Redding singing “Shake it like a bowl of soup” over Outkast’s cacophony any day. —Liberty Hardy, Wire contributor

There are few pieces of music that make me cringe. And there is usually a story behind each. Here’s one: When I was 10 years old, I spent part of a summer in a rented cabin on Rattlesnake Island, Lake Winnepesauke. The only radio station we could receive was Mt. Washington Radio, and that summer, in the mid-1970s, they played “El Condor Pasa,” by Simon and Garfunkel every day, sometimes more than once. Now, each time my siblings and I hear “I’d rather be a hammer than a nail,” we laugh hysterically and then tune to another station as quickly as possible. —Russ Grazier, executive director of the Portsmouth Music and Arts Center

“Linger,” by The Cranberries. This was a tough song for me to choose. I hate it, though. It grates on my spirit and my inner core. There is nothing about this song that I like. Her accent drives through her vocals—and it’s horrid. The chorus is infused with these little trailing accented fall-offs that linger like acidic floods in my ears, burning my soul apart. It’s that song that represents everything I hate about ‘90s music, despite the fact that it’s not performed by Pearl Jam. —Dustin Ruoff, of Mosfet

In the words of Bill Murray in “What About Bob,” “There are two types of people in this world: Those who like Neil Diamond and those who don’t.” I, like Murray’s neurotic character, am in the latter camp. Of Diamond’s vast collection of shit songs, perhaps the one I loathe most is “Sweet Caroline.” I can’t stand how people get all worked up for the segments of audience participation, just brimming with joy as they sing “Oh, oh, ohhh” and “So good! So good!” like halfwits. I saw U2 play this song at Foxboro Stadium in like 1996, and that sucked too. —Matt Kanner, Wire writer

I spent time working at the Portsmouth Postal Distribution Center last year, and while the work was grueling, some of the music played there was even worse. Nothing tops a 12-hour workday like music you’d hear while in a dentist’s chair! YUCK! There’s some irony in my “horrible song” choice. I suppose it is supposed to be a song about resiliency and trying, but it makes me want to hurl: Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day.” That chorus just drills into my brain. It would come on every 15 minutes. That song is my Chinese torture. I left the job after two weeks, and I’ve been a happier man since. —Joseph K. Murphy, of Murkadee