mrstromboli Posted October 18, 2006 Report Share Posted October 18, 2006 Liz found this print article about Mr. Roboto and Dennis' intentions for it in today's Wilkes-Barre PA newspaper the Times Leader. http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader...r_entertainment Shawn -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted on Wed, Oct. 18, 2006 Every song has a story ... “Mr. Roboto” Styx By Jeff Walker Special to The Weekender “Mr. Roboto” was one of Styx’s biggest hits, even though most people had no idea what it was about. It was written by the band’s keyboardist, Dennis DeYoung, as part of a rock opera called “Kilroy Was Here.” And as DeYoung explains, it’s basically a science fiction story put to music. “It’s based on a rock opera. It takes place in the future, where rock and roll has been banned by a man called Dr. Everett Righteous, who is able to correlate the bad times that America is going through to get rock and roll music banned. The night they are going to enact this legislation, Kilroy - his name is Bobby Kilroy - he plays in a band called Kilroy, and they are going to challenge the law. There is a riot, a kid is killed, and rock stars are then put in prison if they play the music. He goes into this prison, this Kilroy character, and the prison is guarded by Japanese robots called Robotos. In an attempt to escape, he overcomes one of the Robotos and gets into the robot outfit with the helmet and goes out into the world to bring back rock and roll. Mr. Roboto is that song. That’s why he says at the end, ‘I’m Kilroy, I’m Kilroy’ … Nobody much knows that, and that hasn’t stopped people from not liking the song.” (laughs) Oddly, the song was never meant to be a hit single. DeYoung said it was only written to provide a smooth segue into the storyline at their live shows at the time. But “Mr. Roboto” marched to #3 in the country in February of 1982. Source: Jeff Walker interview, 10/4/06 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 98.5 KRZ Jumpin’ Jeff Walker, shown with producer Shila, is the drive-time DJ on 98.5 KRZ-FM from 3-7 p.m. He also researchs and collects the orgins and inspirations for well-known pop songs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Posted October 18, 2006 Report Share Posted October 18, 2006 Related to this, I have added the explanation for Mr. Roboto from the VH1 series True Spin in the downloads section. It's a pretty big file, just to let everyone know. http://www.ddytalk.com/forums/index.php?au...file&fid=22 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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