[Verse 1]
Cut the wires to the thinking crown,
Spinal cord still lays the rhythm down,
No metronome tapping from above,
The cord writes its own rhythm, give it a shove,
Lamprey, cat, or human spine,
The beat gets baked into the design,
Call it a generator, central, pattern, true,
It fires the dance without a cue.
[Chorus]
C-P-G, the beat's in the bone,
Walking's whispered by a circuit alone,
Half the center flexes, half extends its hand,
Mutual hush — that's how the steps are planned,
No cortex calling, no conductor's wand,
The spinal rhythm just rolls on and on,
Flex, extend, flex, extend,
The pattern's a self-sustaining friend.
[Verse 2]
Graham Brown, back in nineteen eleven,
Sketched two pools in a wordless heaven,
Flexors shouting while extensors stay muted,
Then they swap — it's neatly suited,
Mutual inhibition, back and forth they sway,
Each one silences the other's say,
Half-center model, simple, clean,
The first blueprint of the walking machine.
[Chorus]
C-P-G, the beat's in the bone,
Walking's whispered by a circuit alone,
Half the center flexes, half extends its hand,
Mutual hush — that's how the steps are planned,
No cortex calling, no conductor's wand,
The spinal rhythm just rolls on and on.
[Verse 3]
Grillner watched the lamprey swim,
Spinal cord alone, sleek and slim,
Sliced from its brain, still rippling through,
Wave after wave, the old tail knew,
Decerebrate cats on a treadmill belt,
Brainless of thought, yet the rhythm felt,
Legs kept stepping in perfect time,
Proof that walking needs no higher rhyme.
[Verse 4]
The mesencephalic locomotor zone,
A brainstem button, small, unknown,
Wakes the sleeping gait from rest,
Stimulate it soft, you amble, unpressed,
Turn it up and the trot ignites,
Crank it further, the gallop takes flight,
Not a command of "turn left here,"
Just the throttle, the tempo, the gear.
[Bridge]
So what's the cortex good for, then?
Threading needles, not walking again,
Stepping over rubble, placing a palm just right,
Eyes and fingers guiding each careful sight,
The lowly spine can march and glide,
But cortex paints the fine detail inside,
Quiescent circuits, dormant, still,
Wake on their own with no need for will.
[Chorus]
C-P-G, the beat's in the bone,
Walking's whispered by a circuit alone,
Half the center flexes, half extends its hand,
Mutual hush — that's how the steps are planned,
No cortex calling, no conductor's wand,
The spinal rhythm just rolls on and on.
[Outro]
Flex, extend, the half-centers hum,
Brainstem dials up how fast you come,
C-P-G, remember the call,
The rhythm was never in the cortex at all.