If all you know about the song we’re about to talk about is Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto? Well, you probably know enough to enjoy it on a surface level. After all, it still sounds great after all these years (it came out in 1983), and it’s catchy on a sing-along level to which many songs aspire, but few manage to reach. But there’s plenty more to learn about the meaning behind “Mr. Roboto” by Styx.
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“Mr. Roboto” actually had a lot going on behind the sheen, however, and much of its backstory and aftermath has been misunderstood over the years. What does the song mean? What inspired Dennis DeYoung to write it? And did the song actually break up the most famous version of a multi-million-selling band? All will be answered, so pull out your Kilroy masks and prepare to learn a little something.
Conceptually Speaking
Styx was riding high as the ‘70s turned into the ‘80s. Their 1980 album Paradise Theatre spawned a pair of Top 10 hits, continuing an impressive run of commercial success. But Dennis DeYoung was dissatisfied. He’d written and sang many Styx hits, but felt he was falling into a bit of a creative rut. He wanted the band to try an ambitious concept album which also included multimedia elements.
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DeYoung was inspired by a documentary he saw that showed the advancement of robotics in factories. This advancement could mean less jobs for humans. In addition, he was still angling to take some pot shots at the powers that be who had tried to ban Styx records for perceived back-masking. These ideas blossomed into Kilroy Was Here. It’s a tale of a non-conformist trying to escape from domineering, small-minded authorities who use robots to assert their power.
Yet in DeYoung’s original conception, there was no song called “Mr. Roboto” in the running order of the album. The piece of music that would become the hit single was meant as nothing more than an interstitial for the stage show he was imagining. But there was something about the track, created largely by DeYoung on a Roland synthesizer with input from the other band members, that rendered it impossible to ignore, to the point that it not only made the album, but became the lead single.
And what about the immortal refrain? In an interview for the book Playing Back the ‘80s: A Decade of Unstoppable Hits, DeYoung told this author it came to him while the band was touring Japan: “I realized that getting ‘konichiwa’ and ‘domo arigato’ right will at least not get you arrested in Japan. Then I hear in a conversation, apropos to nothing, that ‘roboto’ is the Japanese word for robot. So right away, since I really wanted to be Jerry Lewis first before I wanted to be a rock star, my mind went directly to ‘domo arigato, roboto.’”
Roboto’s Rep
Maybe because “Mr. Roboto” was a polarizing song for diehard Styx fans (even as the general public ate it up, making it a No. 3 hit in 1983), there’s a myth that it helped to break up the band, or at least ostracize DeYoung from it. The first problem with this theory is that DeYoung insists that everybody in the band was on board with the song, and that its recording was actually a harmonious process.
In addition, it wasn’t DeYoung who left Styx initially. It was guitarist Tommy Shaw, who jumped into the supergroup Damn Yankees. DeYoung was still on board to write and sing “Show Me the Way,” Styx’s last Top 10 hit. It came out in 1991, a full eight years after “Mr. Roboto.” Shaw even came back and recorded in the band again with DeYoung on the 1999 album Brave New World.
It is true that the stage show for Kilroy Was Here, which featured stretches of the band acting out dialogue, frustrated Shaw and led to his departure. DeYoung’s tenure in Styx didn’t end until 1999.
If “Mr. Roboto” was such a sticking point with the remaining members, that wouldn’t explain why the DeYoung-less version of the band decided to start performing it again live in recent years. Without going into all the specifics, it seems fair to sum up the schism between DeYoung and the other members of Styx as the old standby. Artistic differences—rather than blaming it on an extremely successful song.
What Is “Mr. Roboto” About?
“Mr. Roboto” is somewhat expository in nature. For example, the final shouts of I’m Kilroy don’t make a lot of sense without referring to the album, even if they are fun to hear. But the lyrics are compelling enough on their own. When you combine them with the urgent music, they’re relatable as a kind of sci-fi parable.
The narrator is wearing a robot mask to escape his captors, but he begins to sort of identify with his disguise and call into question his own nature. My heart is human, my blood is boiling, my brain IBM, he explains of his self-confusion. He tries to let his humanity shine through in a world that doesn’t look kindly on that: I’m not a robot without emotions.
DeYoung also winks at the notion of using a synth-heavy track to warn against technological advances. In the end, the narrator decides that he has to be himself, consequences be damned. Perhaps it would inspire others to follow: The time has come at last/To throw away this mask. “Mr. Roboto” works on a lot of levels. The surface delights are there, but thanks to Dennis DeYoung’s all-in commitment to the idea, the song has a lot on its mind. And in its oh-so-human heart.
Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns/Getty Images
