Lyric discussion by avava 

I think conceptually this song is about robots and the future, the conversation with a robot in a bar or whatever Paul Dempsey himself said. That said, I think there is a more personal theme running through the song, certain lines make me think he's referring to the "feeling" of having a long distance relationship via webcam.

  1. "There's a way you've always known her; Telephone between her cheek and her shoulder" -- using a phone to talk while you see each other on a webcam.
  2. "Ramona was a waitress; All but made of information" -- you could interpret this a 2nd way, maybe he's saying the relationship was all in his head, the relationship was "all but made of information" because it only existed on the internet.
  3. "...what if it's only worth; The bundle of nerves it's written on?" -- same thing, what if the relationship isn't really there when they meet in person? He's thinking about whether a relationship can exist "on the internet", outside of our bodies, then he's wondering "what if relationships are only really inside our heads"?.
  4. "I don't need these arms anymore" -- might be a cheeky reference to how your arms aren't usually visible on a webcam, just your head and torso normally. Like, he's spent so long looking at his own head and torso on a screen that it starts to feel like an abstract picture and it doesn't really feel like him anymore, so he says "i don't need this skin and bone", you know, he's become disassociated from his own image.

I think this is the emotional root of the song, the robots and stuff about the future and mortality were possibly added later to make the lyrics richer and the themes more complex; in my view it's a beautiful song about a fleeting long-distance relationship.

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