Mecto Amore - An Analysis
Song by Steam Powered Giraffe,
Rant by Kailyn ‘its not autism’ Holt
DISCLAIMER: this is a very autism-fueled interpretation and there’s a very good chance i missed something or you interpreted it different, if you did PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT IT. Not many people actually talk about this song so I had nothing to go off minus the few google searches I did along with the lyrics.
Yes I am over-analyzing every single lyric
No you can’t stop me.
The song was written by Isabella ‘Bunny’ Bennett and the three robots on the cover sing it (oh by the way Isabella plays Rabbit) David Michael Bennett also helped write it.
Literally everyone forgets this song exists. Even the wiki only has the lyrics lol
I have little to no musical education so hang with me
The Opening:.
It pretty much asks the question: if you knew the origins to the people you send onto the battlefield as soldiers, would you still do it? Would you still love them if you saw what they had done to survive?
Rabbit
If you found your maker’s bag of bones
and learned the secrets of your smart phones,
would you cast them out and immolate,
*or devour your laptop and assimilate?
Umbilical extension cords in the offspring birth
trumpets the progress omen of our future mirth
The chimera machinations create tech manticores,
ushering in a new age of the Mecto Amore
*This lyric in particular is saying “would you still see them as heroes? Would you fight alongside, or would you cast them out?” (referring to the lyric before)
Opening Interpretation (continued)
(this analysis is from “Umbilical…” to “... manticores”)
Now after the truth of your soldiers has been released, why would you continue to send human soldiers? “Umbilical extension cords in the offspring birth” refers to creating robots to fight in wars instead of sending humans (who have emotions *wink wink*)
“Trumpets the progress omen of our future mirth”. The omen referring to the promise made by Peter Walter (creator of the steam powered giraffes and robots) (no literally giraffe robots not the band) to create a better future for humanity with his research on tech.
“Chimera machinations” basically, a ‘chimera’ is a hybrid created from different parts of animals. Chimera machinations refers to the fact that Walter was experimenting on both animals and humans thus creating the robots. Literally in the same line Rabbit says “create tech manticores” it took a little digging but basically a manticore symbolizes ‘bad things on the horizon’ as well as fear. AKA foreshadowing the dangers his tech will cause.
Rabbit
If you found your maker’s bag of bones
and learned the secrets of your smart phones,
would you cast them out and immolate,
or devour your laptop and assimilate?
Umbilical extension cords in the offspring birth
trumpets the progress omen of our future mirth
The chimera machinations create tech manticores,
ushering in a new age of the Mecto Amore
I didn’t want to make a whole other slide but the last line of the opening is “ushering in a new age of the Mecto Amore”
This is coming directly from Rabbit, her as her own ‘person’ saying that there will be a new age where the *musical automatons are in fact not weapons, but who they choose to be.
(*I use that word because that was what the robots were intended to be)
2nd Verse
Guys are you proud of me I looked up what the song structures are
To start, The Spine starts off by talking about the new day and age, basically the world we live in now, or to be more specific 2013 since thIS WAS RELEASED 11 YEARS AGO (and seems to be completely forgotten by the fandom even though it has quite crucial lore details). Anywho, when he says the line “its a me, the next new thing” it is furthering the lines from the first verse about Peter Walter’s promise for a future with his technology. Just another quick disclaimer, I am purely guessing with half this stuff so pretty please don’t take everything I say fully seriously.
The Spine
Well guess who's back in town techno-tinkers
It's a me, the next new thing
Well they sent us away for upgrades
And we return with a fresh coat of paint
2nd Verse (continued)
To get back on track, the third line could mean a number of things (at least in my opinion). It could mean:
- I believe strongly that its this one, considering later in the song it mentions briefly that although they are the same robots they will never be the same from the wars they’ve been in (there's a big PTSD motif in most of the lore/songs) also side note: it might also be a deeper understanding of humans and not a trauma motif.
The Spine
Well guess who's back in town techno-tinkers
It's a me, the next new thing
Well they sent us away for upgrades
And we return with a fresh coat of paint
3rd Verse
Hatchworth was locked in a vault for a while because of a Blue Matter leak, basically what gave him and the other robots life. “The wicked wrench was protocol … for misbehaving par-ti-cals” most likely represents the leak being ‘fixed’ however this experience was both painful and traumatizing. The next two lines show that he’s supposed to be fixed and would not have anymore malfunctions.
He believes that after his upgrades he “should run just fine” and that his trauma from both the war and being locked up won’t matter anymore since he is physically fixed. (again this is referring to the PTSD motif)
Hatchworth
The wicked wrench was protocol
For misbehaving par-ti-cals
They flushed the spiders and bats out
So I should run just fih-hi-hine
I-Don’t-Actually-know-which-part-of-the-song-this-is-called
I believe this verse (?) refers to them being literal robots, that in realistic standards they shouldn’t be feeling… well… anything.
It could also allude to them getting ready, I think to live life as a new being. Since they aren’t fighting and since they aren’t being used as weapons they start experiencing everyday things, similar to how war veterans experience life in a new light than someone who had lived in peace their whole lives. �
Rabbit
(Lets go)
Hatchworth
System Ready
The Spine
(Lets go)
Rabbit
Power Steady
Hatchworth
Boilers Burn
The Spine
Gears are t-t-t-t-turn
Possibly-4th-verse-pls-don’t-bully-me
Also I don’t know how much you know about the SPG lore but just as a reminder they were never made to be weapons, they were supposed to be a tool (in a way) for Peter Walter to appeal to Delilah. Although they weren’t made to love per se, they were made for love. They were only supposed to be musicians that performed and not soldiers.
“System ready” supposedly means “the status of data… at which no additional manipulation… is required” per my google search. This is referring specifically to the fact that the robots had to be physically manipulated in order to be weapons and all alike.
Rabbit
(Lets go)
Hatchworth
System Ready
The Spine
(Lets go)
Rabbit
Power Steady
Hatchworth
Boilers Burn
The Spine
Gears are t-t-t-t-turn
5th, 9th, and 12th Verse
These lyrics are relatively simple, basically they imply that the robots are starting to feel genuine emotion, or in their words, mecto amore (which means Mechanical Love).
The circuitry being the literal term for her innards is a funny robot way to say she has butterflies in her stomach.
“It starts with the Mecto Amore” meaning her being loved is what’s changing her (or technically all the robots)
This song gets very repetitive… if you haven’t noticed.
Rabbit
I can feel it when you say you love me
Ooo, you give me Mecto Amore
And the circuitry between you and me,
it starts with the Mecto Amore
Woah!
(wizard voice) HAHA I HAVE TRICKED YOU!
That last line was a segue introduction to this tangent:
YES! It’s no heck this song is crazy repetitive, ive counted they, say the words “Mecto Amore” (or some variation) over 80 times. �This could easily be overlooked as just a way to fill in words or whatever the heck musicians do when they use repetition, however a small piece of lore/fact is that Rabbit stutters and commonly malfunctions (yes the stuttering is Bunny’s speech impediment but they regularly tie in their outside life to the robots) I think it’d be neat to say that they repeat ‘Mecto Amore’ so much because the robots are being overloaded with all kinds of emotion (aka they’re processing data, in a way, making them malfunction.)
Verse 6
Gotta love it when humans abuse what they cant control.
I highkey love this verse, its my favorite out of the whole song. I mainly interpret this in a projection of my own mental health journey.
“People just keep throwing manuals” to me personally means being invalidated about your feelings just because ‘everyone has those’ aka ‘its normal, everyone goes through that!’ to ‘why are you any different?’. It suggests that they are nothing more than mechanical beings and the thoughts they possess aren't unique in anyway, they aren’t anything more than what the manual says. They aren’t anything more than what they were made to become. It, in a way, repeats how people try to ignore or fight change and a ‘threat to the norm’
Rabbit
People just keep throwing manuals
They say our thoughts are all mechanical
But could it be what they perceive
are not flaws in our wiring?
Verse 6 - continued
These lines suggest that others view the robots as purely mechanical beings, lacking true emotions and individuality. However, the song questions this, hinting that what others see as flaws might actually be unique traits and a sign that the robots are changing.
Its taking on the idea that being unique isn’t what makes someone different, it is in fact about having humanity itself.
The robots may not fit into the mold of what a human is perceived to be, but they change what the mold originally stood for (and normalized)
Rabbit
People just keep throwing manuals
They say our thoughts are all mechanical
But could it be what they perceive
are not flaws in our wiring?
Verse 6 - continued
“But could it be what they perceive are not flaws in our wiring” can relate back to so so so many things, growing up different because of race, gender, sexuality, mental illness, etc. The flaws they perceive are flaws in the system, not the robots aka not their wiring.
Rabbit
People just keep throwing manuals
They say our thoughts are all mechanical
But could it be what they perceive
are not flaws in our wiring?
7th Verse
Basically, it means that the ‘virtual dreams’ aren’t the dreams and aspirations of the robots themselves, but in fact the people around them who have subjected them to the terror of war. Their dreams, the dreams of the people, is about a world where humans don’t fight in wars but robots (that shouldn’t be affected by ptsd do) ‘It took a spurious coagulant’ meaning it took something fake/misleading (probably Walter’s promise for a better tech-based world) to come together (the people accepting that the robots couldn’t replace humans) and realize that the ‘virtual dreams’ were based on wishful thinking and not reality.
It’s quite common for humans to try and take the easy way out, that they would do anything to avoid dealing with repercussions of their actions. The use of robots in war would take out the problem of both veterans coming home and dealing with ptsd as well as the death of thousands from a human-combat based war.
All
It took a spurious coagulant
To know that virtual dreams aren't relevant
It's like baking an illogical pie
The time has come to forti-fih-hi-hi
7th Verse
I apologize for yapping so much but hey you’ve sat around this long I hope you’re entertained.
To wrap up the last slide, the dreams and future Walter aspired for were about achieving something so grand without putting forth the effort. If we as humans can’t figure out how to stop war, the weapons will just get more dangerous, the wars will get bloodier, and more and more people will be hurt. Having robots fight solves the surface problem of humans dying fighting, but doesn’t help the root cause.
It’s honestly just a reflection of human behavior as a whole with robots being used as a rhetorical device.
All
It took a spurious coagulant
To know that virtual dreams aren't relevant
It's like baking an illogical pie
The time has come to forti-fih-hi-hi
11th Verse
Now that we’ve established that this is a unique experience they are having, it’s only right for them to be confused and looking for answers. Now that there’s a label to their experience they know what it is but not what it is. They are struggling alone and that’s where the alienation comes in.
“Conviction, confession?” easily translates to “a confession, standing alone, isn’t enough for a conviction.”
they’re saying that feelings and emotions aren’t enough, they aren’t human just for having emotions. Then, in that case, what makes a human, human?
Rabbit
Mecto Amore (what is this feeling)
Mecto Amore (please explain what it is)
This projection of alienation obsession
Conviction, confession?
Now that is the question
Final Words
Lastly, as I couldn’t put it anywhere else I wanted to share something neat I found.
The album Mecto Amore is a part of, MK III seems to actually have some lore (shocker I know)
MK III:
The End.
Thank you so much for reading! Steam Powered Giraffe is one of my favorite things right now so just being able to yap and have other people hear it makes me so happy. I hope I made enough sense but if I didn’t, leave a comment! I’d love to hear your ideas on it and whether you agree :)
Logging off,
- Kaistrausel