When the Robots Garden at Night

Or how I hate Substack and can't see the irony of my finished draft being lost to technology

Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

(Update: I found the correct version and that is this one, but the emailed version is incorrect)

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I woke up with two competing earworms duking it out for the title of champion of my mental throne. (Do worms have anything resembling limbs? I’m getting them confused with centi and millipedes. Time to check in with trusty Google.)

How do worms move? Worms don't have limbs, so they stretch and contract muscles in their body to move about. They are helped by tiny bristles covering their bodies that allow them to grip surfaces.

I suppose “muscling” is an apt and scientifically accurate verb to use to describe the act of a song or lyric (or two) attaching itself to the inner DJ part of the brain. I like that. It captures the sometimes violent act of being beaten, or pummeled, by unrelenting song loops, which is exactly how it feels to have Styx’s 1983 hit song “Mr. Roboto” stuck on constant redial. Not the entire song mind you, just the part between seconds 45-58 in the below video. The part where the robotic voices chime in singing:

Domo arigato Mr. Roboto
Mata au hi made
Domo arigato Mr. Roboto
Himitsu wo shiri tai

What does it mean? And more importantly, why do I have lyrics stuck in my head that I both don’t know the proper Japanese pronunciation of and also don’t know their meaning? It’s most likely culturally insensitive both on my account and even more so by Dennis DeYoung of Styx who wrote the song.

Here’s what one thread (of many!!!) determined as the best translation of the lyrics:

Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto.
Until we meet again.
Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto.
When you have time, I'd like to know your secret.

It sounds better in Japanese.

I’m not going to explore the larger concept around Styx’s album, Kilroy Was Here, and it’s themes surrounding fear of technology and robots replacing humans (none too original sci-fi tropes) while at the same time being the most electronic (and dated) album in Styx’s ouevre.

Again, a quick internet search reveals this about Styx keyboardist and vocalist Dennis DeYoung and his inspiration for this addictive song and album:

DeYoung had been to Japan with the band and was intrigued by their culture. Later, he saw a documentary on robots put to work in factories. He merged these concepts of censorship, robotics and Japan into "Mr. Roboto," the story of a human/robot hybrid who is called upon to save the world.

I guess it’s essentially an age old story. Frankenstein. The Golem. The Iron Giant. E.T. “Mr. Roboto” is just another rung on the ladder of that long lineage.

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Young and sweaty R.E.M. in 1981

The 2nd song that entered my brainosphere during the wee hours was “Gardening at Night” by R.E.M.

This is a deep cut, one that even many R.E.M. aficionados might not recognize. It appeared on their very first EP, Chronic Town. And then again on their B-Sides collection Dead Letter Office. I hadn’t listened to the song in at least 20 years so why it suddenly popped in to say “hi!” uninvited I have no idea. Or maybe I do have an idea.

A couple of nights ago I was actually gardening around 8pm. Planting corn seedlings. It was more like evening, it wasn’t yet dark, the sky was clinging to its last vestiges of light, but who am I to limit the definition of night?

A quick internet search about this song revealed this exciting tidbit from R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck who wrote the song:

“Gardening At Night" is about an old neighbor of mine who used to putter about the yard after dark.

Wow, super thrilling. If I lived in Athens, Georgia back in 1979 (ish) and was much older than a pre-teen, he could have written it about me. This story is proof that a song can be written about literally anything.

Gardening during the day seemed to be enough to push this earworm out of my mind.

I think it was also the fact that the lyrics “gardening at night” are the only ones that Michael Stipe sang with any intelligibility.

Maybe if he’d thought to sing some of the song in Japanese it would have stuck longer.