If you were looking at it on a superficial level, Mergence's "Me and My Family Vs. The Robots" might seem like it's pandering to the "LOL sO RaNdOm" generation with their incessant texting, gum chewing and love for robots, zombies, and other stuff of apocalyptic lore.
But really, it's less like Futurama and more like Walden. Feeling alone and disconnected from life, singer and keyboardist Adam Bruce took off for his tiny, remote White Mountains cabin. It's a writing method that reeks of cliche, but yet it's worked for an innumerable amount writers, painters, philosophers and musicians for hundreds of years. That very fact might unrightfully degrade the legitimacy of what actually came out of Bruce's feelings that day, and he realizes that.
The robots are a metaphor, sort of. The emphasis on money, plastic surgery, excessive consumption, disregard for nature and other selfish things that don't matter at the end of the day are at the center of the song.
"The more I talk about it, the more I feel like I am diluting it," Bruce says. "The song was truly how I felt at the time and came out in one piece without really thinking about anything specific."
Bruce does an interesting thing during Mergence's live shows. Depending on how he feels, he'll substitute one of three words in a crucial line in the song -- the opening. "I'm amazed at the ease of things, when we are outnumbered, by calm, quiet, indigenous things, that exist without thought," where "thought" is swapped by "plot" or "gods."
"That was where the whole song idea flowed from. I could feel just how the trees, animals, nature, and all the indigenous or natural plants were working together in their own flow, all the time, without confusion or forcing things," Bruce says. "Obviously being a human is a bit more complex because of our consciousness and other (we can call them unknown) factors, but our lives are really not that different. All living things need a certain balance to sustain health and happiness and growth. Ours has just become way too complicated and diluted in my opinion."
All things that have been said before, sure, but it's something that most of us know deep down. That's why no matter how many times he plays the song, Bruce still tears up at certain parts.
Continuing their tradition for performing just about any show that comes their way, your next chance to see Mergence live is on August 19 at The Lost Leaf.
