Posted by: DeusExSapientia
Posting time: 3 years ago on
Last edit time: never edited.
Archived on: 3/12/2018 10:00:00 AM
Views: 160
SCP: 5
6 upvotes, 1 downvotes (86% upvoted it)
~1 user(s) here now
NSFW: No
Authorized: No
Anon: No
Private: No
Type: Default
Sort: Top
[–] cynicaloldfart 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
The first few lines translate to "Thank you very much Mr. Roboto, until we meet again, thank you very much Mr. Roboto, I want to know your secret." The "secret" in the line "secret secret, I've got a secret" is that Mr. Roboto is actually DeYoung's character, who has disabled a robot and is wearing his shell. In the film, this is how he escapes and meets up with Shaw's character. The song tells part of the story of Robert Orin Charles Kilroy (ROCK), in the rock opera Kilroy Was Here. The song is performed by Kilroy (as played by keyboardist Dennis DeYoung), a rock and roll performer who was placed in a futuristic prison for "rock and roll misfits" by the anti-rock-and-roll group the Majority for Musical Morality (MMM) and its founder Dr. Everett Righteous (played by guitarist James Young). The Roboto is a model of robot which does menial jobs in the prison. Kilroy escapes the prison by overpowering a Roboto prison guard and hiding inside its emptied-out metal shell. When Jonathan Chance (played by guitarist Tommy Shaw) finally meets Kilroy, at the very end of the song, Kilroy unmasks and says "I'm Kilroy! Kilroy!", ending the song.
The robot-like catchphrase was created with a vocoder. The song heavily features the Oberheim OB-Xa and PPG Wave synthesizers. To get the futuristic robotic sounds on this track, Dennis DeYoung used a Roland synthesizer with an arpeggiator that had just come on the market. This allowed him to hold a key and play a pattern, which is what he used to create some of the soundscape. It's a case of being one of the first to use a new synth and getting that sound out there before everyone else did. Several hits of the '80s came from presets on new synthesizers.
This song and the album were very successful, but not everyone in the group was on board with the concept, especially guitarist Tommy Shaw. Every single from the album was a Dennis DeYoung composition (the others were "Don't Let It End" and "High Time"), and Shaw was not thrilled with the musical direction the band was headed, or his role at the Kilroy concerts, where he had to do some acting. He left the band when the tour was over and didn't return until 1996. Three years after he returned to the fold, DeYoung experienced serious health problems and couldn't tour, so the band hit the road without him. He never returned to the group.
[–] DeusExSapientia [S] ago
You're not going to axe me in the head because of my reservations at Dorsia? Don't you have some tapes to return?
[–] cynicaloldfart ago
? Am I supposed to be insulted?