...I Married a Robot!

5/11/10 EDIT: WHOEVER KEEPS FILING DMCA COMPLAINTS PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE IS NO COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL IN THIS POST WHATSOEVER. I WILL TAKE FURTHER ACTION IF THIS POST IS TAKEN DOWN FRIVOLOUSLY AGAIN.

I absolutely cannot stop listening to "Robot Song" by Margaret Berger. Emily and I listened to it about ten times in the car on the way up to New Haven yesterday, and I had a moment in the car where I thought I'd need to rush up to my friend's room and say "Gawd I've needed to blog the whole car ride!" Which I didn't 'cuz it'd be so rude. But I'll try to write about this here in a way that won't completely hinder my ability to review it elsewhere later.

There are two key things that we discovered in re-listening to it in the car. The first general point is that Margaret Berger has created an entire sci-fi universe in this song; it unfolds how I imagine a Philip K. Dick story might (except I've never read him). Notice how Berger immediately establishes a familiar parallel universe, very much like our own, where her unspeakable love has very specific implications to different family members -- Mom and sisters hear that she's in love with someone, while Dad can't even know that much. So we might be in a sub-Sirkian [EDIT: pseudo-Sirkian? sci-Sirk?] melodrama. The conversational lightness of this first verse is crucial; it's kind of a bait and switch on first listen, since "Dad can't find out I love a robot" doesn't exactly scream TAKE THIS VERY SERIOUSLY. But, like any good melodrama, Berger knows exactly when to hit the right "serious" notes, and the impact is kind of staggering; I am genuinely moved every time I listen to this song. The second verse is also important, especially upon relistening and understanding the framework of the song, because she (1) more directly explains that her love is forbidden in her society and (2) tells us that she has finally decided to leave the robot; I imagine them meeting in a park, self-conscious at first and darting their eyes around looking for judgmental passersby, and when the coast is clear they just hold each other as the world around them dissolves, like Gatsby's final contact with Daisy Buchanan during their first affair (guess what I read this weekend).

The second major revelation is that "Robot Song" is a DUET! The first verse is directed at "you," i.e. the robot, and she stops addressing him when she first shouts her despair to the heavens -- I'M IN LOVE WITH A ROBOT! (And arguably even more heart-breaking -- and I didn't hear it the first time or two -- is the next line: "Come to get me when the stars die." Heart-breaking for a few reasons, aside from the obvious impact of it, one being the very precise phrasing, "come to get me" over the more common "come and get me." It's little touches like this that sell the drama almost unconsciously, along with her performance, which incidentally might be the only time on this album I'm ever truly moved by her singing...it's as if she doesn't trust how gorgeous her voice is unadorned and unprocessed; there's too much fussing and shoving down the vocals and filtering them through Julian Casablancas's telephone. Also, again the implied "you" in "come to get me" is the robo-lover, which allows for an eerie literal interpretation, since presumably the robot will be "alive" when the stars have died and all prejudiced humans have been wiped off the face of the earth. At which point he will find her and shut off his own microprocessors, since, duh, this is the greatest sci-fi Romeo and Juliet ever told!)

Anyway, important to the duet idea is that the robot answers her! "You're the only one who makes me feel a thing" is first sung not by Berger-unadorned, but Berger-roboprocessed, and when she swallows the repetition ("You're the only one that makes me feel a thing, you're the only [one who] ohhhhh") you could hear it (as I sort of hear it) as the closest reaction an android might have to weeping, getting its circuits crossed and skipping like a record. Berger herself will sing this line sans robo-voice in the final chorus (and its meaning changes when she sings it, since the crisis of "feeling a thing" probably differs from human to robot -- another example of the power and resilience of the universe she's created in this song), after which the robot chimes in for a final epitaph on their romance: "Another time, another place, another world..."

Stunning. Since "Robot Song" isn't officially a single now but could conceivably be released as one later, I'm very reluctantly keeping it off my list this year, where, can't believe I'm sayin' it but, it might kick "4ever" out of its secure place, thus leaving the Veronicas very mad at me, enough to subsequently exact their revenge in a juvenile way they find funny but will be more hurtful and meanspirited a prank/punishment than any decent person would deem appropriate...but if it does get released in early 2007 it's right up there at #1 until something else tries to knock it down.

EDIT: A couple of obsessive edits and a big hello to MobileRobotics.org.