Lyrics Sad Machine - Commentary - Porter Robinson

"Sad Machine" was in fact the last song I wrote for the album
Um, and I, this was another song that really began with writing that riff
I mean, I had, I had wanted to use that kind of drum sensibility
Um, I wanted something, another thing that was kind of in that 90 BPM space
But I wanted the song to first imply that it was 177 BPM like a drum 'N bass song
'Cause it's like "dada, dada, dada, dada"
And I wanted people to kind of expect that faster beat
And of course, I take it to half-time
So it's 88.5 BPM, which is around 90
And I really wanted that sort of trick for the song

I wanted to, to, like make the listener anticipate a drum 'N bass beat
And then not actually do that, um
And I wrotе that riff, uh, while I was in the, in
I wrote that first lеad melody while I was in that process
And I was like, "oh man, well this, this needs to be the hook"
Um, I had also used AVANNA the Vocaloid program
The female robot vocal in this song, for two other songs at this point
I had used it on "Fresh Static Snow" already
And I had made "Goodbye To A World" already, which is the last song on the album
And I knew I wanted to kind of embrace her as a signature of the record

And, so I started writing this vocal for her
And I tried three or four different things and none of them worked, uh
And finally, I wrote that first, that intro verse, that "who survived?"
And, uh, then the notion of a human-robot duet occurred to me
And I just knew, knew, knew, knew I had to do it
And uh, I was trying to think of various common turns of phrase
Trying to think of the hook of the vocal
And the song feels very kind of fragile and vulnerable to me
Um, but wistful and nostalgic and stuff, and I knew those were all just keywords
But, um, when I thought of the phrase "she depends on you"

I was like, "oh man, that's really beautiful"
And I wrote a melody to that, and lo and behold, we had the hook of "Sad Machine"
I think it's a contender for my favourite song on the album
And, I think it's a contender for one of my favourite songs on the album
So, um, I was so happy that I got to release it in advance of the record
Because I felt that it really summed up to people what the album was about, in a weird way