'Mr. Roboto' Might Not Be So Cheesy
The song may have turned off fans of the rock ban Styx, but it may have been prophetic in a sense.
“Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto” may remind you more about cheesy songs than insightful ones. Some would even say it reminds them of the low point for the rock band Styx.
“Mr. Roboto” was featured on the band’s third concept album “Kilroy Was Here.” It was written by Dennis DeYoung, the band’s lead singer at the time. It was also a song that, while attracting new fans to Styx, drove other fans away and, as some claim, may have led to the band breaking up.
Indeed, the album itself explores a rather odd scenario. Musician Robert Orin Charles Kilroy (ROCK, get it?) is on the run in a dystopian world in which the Majority for Musical Morality (a reference to the Moral Majority that gained influence in the 1980s) imprisoned rock artists. Kilroy escapes by disguising himself as a Roboto, or a model of robot that does menial jobs.
The inspiration behind the album reportedly came after conservative televangelists suggested there was something sinister about Styx because of its band name — accusing the band along the lines of engaging in “backward Satanic masking.”
When one actually listened to the songs the band released, though, it’s hard to think of Styx as having anything to do with such a practice. “Long Nights (Blue Collar Man)” and “Too Much Time On My Hands” dealt with the plight of the working class, while “Fooling Yourself (Angry Young Man)” railed against youth who had a pessimistic view of society and their roles in it. And then there was “Babe,” which was DeYoung’s attempt to get the band into soft rock, something that plenty of Styx fans didn’t like.
But in response to these criticisms from the Moral Majority, DeYoung pushed for the idea of this concept album, focusing on the themes of the dangers of censorship, totalitarian rule and technological advances. The concept album reportedly divided the band, particularly with the idea of promoting a feature film to go along with concerts, and to include DeYoung and Shaw acting out parts on stage (DeYoung as Kilroy and Shaw as rock rebel Jonathan Chance).
For the record, Shaw has said in recent interviews that he was initially supportive of the idea, though he noted that “Mr. Roboto” and the concept album alienated a lot of the band’s fans.
Regardless of what one thinks about “Mr. Roboto,” when you look back on the song and the lyrics, you may realize that DeYoung might have been prophetic — even if his vision may not exactly match the world today.
DeYoung’s lyrics feature Kilroy describing himself as the “Modren Man,” which appears to be an intentional misspelling of “modern.” This may be a reference to postmodernism, or a general suspicion of reason and sensitivity to the role of ideology in keeping power. We can see this in how some people today claim there is no objective reality and no such thing as scientific truth.
The lyrics, though, question the idea of robotic thinking (“my heart is human, my blood is boiling, my brain IBM”) that the Moral Majority sometimes pushed — and what the Moral Majority pushed wasn’t always about scientific fact. But while the Moral Majority’s influence may have waned, other institutions have gained influence and are trying to impose their own robotic thinking.
We then get to the catch phrase “domo arigato, Mr. Roboto” that encompasses Kilroy’s dilemma, in which he is undergoing an identity crisis. He owes plenty to Roboto for his escape (and even refers to how Roboto does the jobs “nobody wants to”) but still sounds robotic himself. And then, it leads to his conclusion about what’s really at stake.
The problem’s plain to see
Too much technology
Machines to save our lives
Machines dehumanize
Now think about our world today, in which we all carry around a smartphone, on which we communicate mostly through social media with some texting thrown in (and fewer phone calls in which we carry on a conversation). On social media, everything is controlled by an algorithm that gives you more of what you want. Decisions are made by whoever writes the algorithm in terms of what is or isn’t permissible to share. And then comes something like ChatGPT, which can write something for us without humans giving it much thought — perhaps, someday, to include rock songs.
“Machines dehumanize” sounds quite profound now, doesn’t it?
Again, it’s not likely DeYoung envisioned our current society when he penned the lyrics. It’s true that the people with whom he expressed his displeasure against fell on one side of the culture war (and arguably not the side who has the most influence right now).
But it’s worth asking just how close “Mr. Roboto” comes to the truth about how our society has evolved, and to question the role of those who currently influence society and their roles in pushing for more censorship and authoritarian measures, along with our over-reliance on technology.
Because if we don’t, it may not be long before we find ourselves with the same dilemma that the fictional Kilroy faced.