Lazy Stalker Relies on Pop Songs to Induce Terror, Love

Overland Park, KS - Mark Sanders is a stalker and a music buff. He is also lazy. So when he recently re-heard comments from one of musical idols about the true meaning of one of his most popular songs, Sanders thought it was only a natural move to begin using carefully written but creepy pop songs as a substitute for the carefully written but creepy letters he sends Sarah McIntyre, the current object of his sick and misguided affection.

“It occurred to me a few weeks ago when I was watching VH-1 and they showed an old interview with Sting about the song ‘Every Breath You Take,’ and he said it a ‘It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn't realize at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance and control.’ I also thought I remembered him saying something once about that song being a “nasty” song about possession and I figured hey, why reinvent the wheel? There are so many pop songs out there that sound so dark and sinister when viewed in the correct light that I just knew that if I used them correctly, I could make Sarah see that we are meant to be together forever, not only in this life but beyond the grave.”

While McIntyre disputes that Sanders “was made for lovin’ [him], baby” and “that [she] was made for lovin’ [him]” as Sanders declared when he copied selected lyrics from the 1970s Kiss song “I Was Made for Lovin’ You” from the album “Dynasty” before carefully cutting the individual words from a magazine and pasting them onto a clean and fingerprint-free sheet of paper that he later mailed to McIntyre, she does agree that these letters from Sanders terrorize her although they fail in their intended purpose of forcing McIntyre to realize Sanders is the love of her life.

“I briefly dated (Sanders) back when I’d just gotten out of college and I probably should have realized something was up when he made a point of playing “No Reply” by The Beatles. He seemed really intent on making me listen to the part where John Lennon said “I tried to telephone, they said you were not home, that’s a lie. ‘Cause I know where you’ve been, I saw you walk in your door. I nearly died, I nearly died, ‘Cause you walked hand in hand, with another man in my place,’ That was my brother, by the way. And then his voice got very low and ominous when he sang along and said ‘if I were you, I’d realize that I love you more than any other guy.’ That was the last night I ever voluntarily saw him again.”

For a period of time after the “No Reply” incident McIntyre was regularly confronted by what she calls “run of the mill, stalking-type behavior,” such as finding Sanders lurking in her bushes after dark, once arriving at home to find Sanders lying nude on her couch while reading her Valu-Mail coupon books and even finding her cat alive but hanging from the ceiling with his paws tied with string. But McIntyre believed that the restraining order obtained against Sanders and her recent spate of self-defense classes would be enough to keep her safe. However, Sanders’ recent decision to begin sending the words to pop songs has taken McIntyre to newfound depths of terror.
“I know how silly it must seem, being more afraid of a stalker that would send liner notes than one that would torture a cat like Muffintop, but given all his past behavior, how would you feel if you got a note in the mail that said ‘It’s just a matter of time before you make up your mind to give up that love that you’ve been hiding. It’s just a question of when, I’ve told you time and again, I’ll get all that love you’ve been denying?’” McIntyre recently said, quoting the song “Sooner or Later” by the group The Grass Roots while barely suppressing a shudder.

Sanders agrees that his entire purpose is to scare McIntyre into the realization that she won’t be able to live without him. “If I’m not in her life, I want her to realize that her life has no value,” Sanders said recently. “It’s a lot like Harry Nilsson said: ‘I can’t live, if living is without you,’ except totally in reverse. She can’t live if living is without me. I can’t allow that to happen because she is so special.”

While McIntyre doesn’t feel any closer to Sanders as a result of his new efforts, she admits that they seem to be having at least some of the desired effects. “While I will never agree to be in the same room as Mark, I think of him even more often than I used to. I can’t turn on the radio anymore because every song seems to be something he could use to threaten me. Last week I heard Sweet singing that ‘love is like oxygen, you get too much you get too high, not enough and you’re gonna die,’ and that totally sounded like a threat Mark might make to me,” she said
Upon hearing that his new efforts to woo McIntyre seem to be having some results, Sanders vowed to continue and even redouble his efforts. “Just last week I was getting discouraged,” he admitted. “I called her on the telephone and played her some Pet Shop Boys where they say ‘I bought you drinks, I bought you flowers, I read you books and talked for hours and every day so many drinks such pretty flowers so tell me what have I done to deserve this?’ and she just hung up on me. I have to admit, I thought that maybe she had stopped playing hard to get and that she really didn’t love me anymore. But knowing that this is making her think of me even more? Well, let’s just say I’ve got a few things I’m going to be working on. For example, have you ever listened to the sing “How Deep is Your Love” by the Bee Gees? That song is a treasure trove of pretty lyrics that can be twisted into words that force you to stop denying your love. From ‘I know your eyes in the morning sun’ when I have never seen her wake up without the aid of powerful binoculars to ‘’Cause we’re living in a world of fools, breaking us down when they all should let us be. We belong to you and me,’ and all the way to ‘And you may not think I care for you when you know down inside that I really do and it’s ME you need to show.’” Well, let’s just say that as long as there is Top-Forty radio, I will never have to worry about finding material to make Sarah realize that I am in her life forever.