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about
R.U.R is the brand new single from Joyce.
On R.U.R, Joyce is:
Jimmy Watkins - guitar, bass, drum programming, keys, vocals
Additional keys played by Adrian Watkins (my dad)
R.U.R was written by Jimmy Watkins.
It was mixed and mastered by Stale Winton
Here's how the song came into existence:
I had the music for R.U.R written and recorded two months before I knew what it was going to be about lyrically. The words came together after I read the 1920 Czech sci-fi play R.U.R. In the play the manufacture of robots gets out of hand, and they end up taking over the world, and killing all the humans. I was sat in a soft play watching my kids playing as I thought about a future where robots were in charge, and it made me suddenly realise how magical the most mundane moments of human existence are. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that we may be amongst the last humans on this planet, and I felt this sudden urge to record moments from my life as though leaving a note for our future masters. I talk about quitting alcohol because of exercise, I talk about a dream I had which came true the next day and I talk about the state of the world we are living in right now. I wanted to show that what might seem normal and uninteresting to us, is fascinating and heart-breaking compared to the life of a machine without a soul. When I finished the song, I realised that the sci-fi element of it had helped me write a song which would explain to my kids who their dad was and what he was like. I loved that twist. When we think about a future that scares us, we can sometimes find what’s of value to us in our lives now. This helps us decided what knowledge and magic we want to pass on to the next generation.
lyrics
If this is going to work it needs to be painfully honest, torn apart, autobiographical, and quick.
I’ve had five lives, all of them very boring, all of them uninspiring, but at least I wasn’t an insect, or worse, a tory voter, up to my neck in poisonous gravy, dirty stuffing, blue plates designed only for smashing. Drive like the motorway is leaking, to the edge of the fountain and take the hearts from all those that touched him, that’s me done on dragons den this evening.
Something tells me I’m not the only one to feel this way.
Sometimes when I’m trying to figure things out, I go to really noisy places and listen to Dry Cleaning. I wrote these lyrics in a soft play. Kids swinging from a nicotine tiled ceiling, legs stretched meters long like triffids knitted out of early morning eye lids. I once saw the largest cruise ship in the world get sunk by a prawn, and a man of who died for nothing. I’ve drunk Evian and exercised for days on end, believing eventually, through all that sweat I would feel connected to His presence.
Something tells me I’m not the only one to feel this way.
Maybe, just maybe, we’ll get to go down in history one day.
The government just released this video of police arresting a homeless man hiding in a toyshop. Check out number six was violently sick at the sight of Pokémon cards sticking between his toes. The good old days.
Something tells me I’m not the only one to feel this way.
Maybe, just, maybe, we’ll get to go down in history one day.
I want this to be a song for your future. Let the robots know I was thinking about them long before they ever thought of us. I want them to know the strangest thing that ever happened to me was when I had a dream that a blue car had crashed into my primary school. I woke up the next morning, and sure enough, a navy Cortina had smashed headfirst into the grand piano in the canteen. Packed lunch and numb teeth for a couple of weeks. I’ve given up drinking, no wait, “dear diary, I’ve given up drinking”, there, that’s better, it’s official now. Toxic positivity, treadmills in the woods, keep sweating little piggies, mammy loves you.
Something tells me I’m not the only one to feel this way.
Maybe, just, maybe, we’ll get to go down in history one day.
R.U.R
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