Spiritual Machines - Music and Lyrics

Music and Lyrics

The songs for Spiritual Machines were written and partially recorded during a year in which the band was doing extensive touring of Canada, the United States, and Europe. According to lead singer Maida, the live stage-context inspired the band to "keep it really basic and not try to add too many textures... to not overdo it." and giving the technically inclined record an ironically acoustic feel at times. According to Maida, half of the record was completed before the book and its ideas even entered the equation. During an interview in late 2001, he stated, "... even though it seems quite intrinsic to the record, really, it only represents about four or five songs." While the lyrics of several songs were inspired by the futuristic theories of Kurzweil, they were also written as a response to them, saying that the human spirit would always prevail. "Lyrically, this album is about finding the spirituality within ourselves." This is the case with the opening song, "Right Behind You (Mafia)", which Raine said, ".. not an 'f-you' to Kurzweil. It's like 'I believe what you're saying, but we're going to fight it as well because there is a soul and there is a spirit.'" Following "Mafia" is the song "In Repair", which muses on how the human body can be "repaired," whether through heart surgery or after an accident. This song is countered by the following track, "Life" which, explained Maida, "recognizes the pain our minds can experience."

During a 2001 interview with Gary Graff from Wall of Sound Magazine, Maida recounted the inspiration for the lyrics of "Are You Sad". He was in New York recording "In Repair" at the old Hit Factory studio, which was later known as Avatar Studios. Following those sessions, Maida attempted to call his younger brother from his hotel room but couldn't get through. "When you're making a record, you kind of go into hiding, especially when I'm writing lyrics or writing music; I tend not to keep in touch with any friends or family or stuff. But my brother and I have a good relationship, and I want to keep it good. I couldn't get a hold of him for, like, a week, and I knew he was going through a shitty time — typical young-20s, no job, having a tough life. I wanted to talk to him desperately, and this song just came out of me, "Are You Sad?" It came out really quickly on a shitty travel guitar". The meaning of "If You Believe" was revealed in a 2001 interview with Cleveland.com, "That song's about having an out-of-body experience and seeing that the afterlife is real," Maida confirms, "and telling people that there's something machines can't have, and we've got it.

Spiritual Machines concludes with the track "The Wonderful Future", which is one of the more unique songs on the album that features minimal instrumentation. Raine explained that the song embraces the outcome of Kurzweil's future and accepts it as something new and exciting. It is about a woman who builds her "own satellite from an old rusted chair" who will one day realize that a man of flesh and tears can satisfy her future. "That's one of my favourite songs, for that reason," said Maida. "That song's about building the perfect human – this cyber-human – and realizing that you can't really compete." Following several minutes of silence after "The Wonderful Future", there is a hidden track with Ray Kurzweil communicating with 'Molly'. Molly is a robot from 2099, who at the beginning of the book was a 23-year-old woman who knew nothing about what Kurzweil was trying to explain, and then started to evolve in the way Kurzweil predicted.

In a March 2010 interview with The Montreal Gazette, Maida looked back fondly on the making of the album and while saying it took a while to get it right both musically and lyrically, he said "I appreciate the work I did lyrically; it does all tie together. As I sing these songs, it has that feeling of fixing things, and kind of where Ray was going in terms of being able to fix anything and possibly living beyond the realm of any human being and whatever anyone could think of a human living."