This song was written for my son Ben. It was written to be performed totally in a synthetic sense. I programmed the drum computer myself and performed the rhythms. Programmed the actual sequence and performed all the instruments on it. And all of the voices. Neil Young Rock On Interview/BBC Radio 1 September 29, 1982

If you listen to Trans, if you listen to the words to “Transformer Man” and “Computer Age” and “We R in Control,” you’ll hear a lot of references to my son and to people trying to live a life by pressing buttons, trying to control the things around them, and talking with people who can’t talk, using computer voices and things like that. Neil Young Rolling Stone Interview with James Henke June 12, 1988

"Transformer man" is a song for my kid. If you read the words to that song - and look at my child with his little button and his train set and his transformer - the whole thing is for Ben. Neil Young The Village Voice/Jimmy McDonough December 1989

Trans was about all these robot-humanoid people working in this hospital and the one thing they were trying to do was teach this little baby to push a button. That's what the record's about. Read the lyrics, listen to all the mechanical voices, disregard everything but that computerized thing, and it's clear Trans is the beginning of my search for communication with a severely handicapped nonoral person. 'Transformer man' is a song for my kid. If you read the words to that song - and look at my child with his little button and his train set and his transformer - the whole thing is for Ben. People completely misunderstood Trans. They put me down for fuckin' around with things I shouldn't have been involved with. Well, fuck them. But it hurt, because this was for my kid. Neil Young The Village Voice/Jimmy McDonough December 1989

A song I wrote for my son Ben, who has Cerebral Palsy, hoping that he could learn to communicate through technology. Ben learned a lot! He still is with me on the road today, riding “shotgun” in the bus! Neil Young NYA - Now Showing in the Hearse Theater March 3, 2020

This is a song for my son Ben. Ben was born with CP. Our lives all changed. Pegi started the Bridge School. Ben and I made a big train layout and I developed a remote control system for Lionel that disabled people like Ben could use. The Transformer is the device that powers the tracks so the train goes. Ben had no control of his hands for fine things like grabbing and moving. He used his head to enable a switch connected by wire to the controller I designed with my friend Ron Milner. The controller wirelessly controlled the train layout. Anything I did on the controller, Ben could reproduce with his head switch until i did something else, then he could do that. it opened a door between us. We had a great time. Neil Young NYA - Now Showing in the Hearse Theater March 18, 2020