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image | below

Portrait of music artist Paul Dempsey.

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— contents —

~ music
~ quotes
~ pages
~ lyrics

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— music —

album: Everything Is True
song title: “Ramona Was a Waitress”
music artist: Paul Dempsey
year: 2009

watch | “Ramona Was a Waitress” ~ music video
listen | “Ramona Was a Waitress” ~ song

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IMAGE

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— quote —

1. |

from: Paul Dempsey
bio: musician, singer + song-writer

So “Ramona Was a Waitress” is  unusual song. It’s about a guy arguing with an artificial intelligent robot waitress about mortality. Sort of an unusual subject for a pop song. But that’s what I was thinking about as I scrawled the lyrics — artificial intelligence and conscious robots arguing about the meaning of life.

The Ramona actually comes from — there’s a guy called Ray Kurzweil who is an interesting character. He’s one of the foremost thinkers on artificial intelligence and what the future holds for technology. He created this chat-bot program called Ramona that’s like an interactive person.

As technology progresses he’s trying to build her up so she becomes more and more sophisticated. He hopes that one day in the future she will be essentially conscious. That’s the point he’s trying to make: that at some point in the future tech will be arguably conscious. I find that an interesting idea. I managed to pack it into a pop song.

— Paul Dempsey

DOTLINE

— reference —

publication: Technoist
tag line: ~
web: home v channel

story title: Robots in popular music
read | story

— summary —

Paul Dempsey teams up with a robot waitress.

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— quote —

2. |

from: Paul Dempsey
bio: musician, singer + song-writer

The Ramona in the song is actually supposed to be this kind of artificial intelligence and the third bridge. There’s this guy Ray Kurzweil who has all these wacky ideas about paths to artificial intelligence and trans-humanism — the third bridge is actually a part of his concept of when human beings will transcend their biology.

— Paul Dempsey

DOTLINE

— reference —

publication: Mess + Noise
tag line: ~
web: home v channel

story title: New York state of mind
read | story

presented by

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— webpages —

music artist: Paul Dempsey
web: home
v  channel

music artist: Something for Kate
web: for Kate | home
o channel

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image | below

Photo of the music group Something for Kate — with band members Paul Dempsey, Clint Hyndman, Stephanie Ashworth.

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— lyrics —

song title: “Ramona Was a Waitress”
music artist: Paul Dempsey

Typing letters to the dead
Late at night on a closed piano lid
She circles past, she fills your glass
But she doesn’t recognise the song

Once in a lifetime she says
The waking life stitched together in your head
Well, what if it’s only worth
The bundle of nerves it’s written on?

And I don’t need these arms anymore
I don’t need this heart now to love
I don’t need this skin and bone at all

There’s a way you’ve always known her
Telephone between her cheek and her shoulder
And eyes like crystal balls
That just won’t shut up about the future of the future

And Ramona was a waitress
All but made of information
In a bar under the third bridge
She says she’s looking forward to living forever

When I won’t need these arms anymore
When I won’t need this heart now to love
And I won’t need this skin and bone at all
At all
And Ramona was a waitress

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— notes + abbreviations —

* Ramona is the name of  a virtual reality persona created by best selling author, inventor, futurist: Ray Kurzweil