[Verse 1]
Zoom in close, past the skin of your thought,
Every neuron's a cell, with the parts cells have got —
A membrane wrapped round it like a skin on the rain,
A nucleus curled up, holding your DNA chain.
Mitochondria humming, tiny furnaces bright,
Ribosomes stringing proteins all through the night,
Endoplasmic reticulum, the hallway they run,
Golgi wraps the package when the stitching is done.
[Chorus]
È una cellula — just a cell, nothing more,
Same old bricks as your skin, same old blueprint, same core,
Ma è speciale, wait and see, dendrites reaching far,
È una cellula — building block, building star.
[Verse 2]
Call the body "soma," the hub where you grow,
Where the nucleus rests and the proteins all flow,
Nissl bodies cluster, rough ER in piles,
Stain up dark and gritty under microscope dials.
Soma mio, piccola fabbrica — small but it churns,
Makes the parts that the dendrite and axon both earn.
[Chorus]
È una cellula — just a cell, nothing more,
Same old bricks as your skin, same old blueprint, same core,
Ma è speciale, wait and see, dendrites reaching far,
È una cellula — building block, building star.
[Verse 3]
Now the brain's just two percent of the weight that you tote,
But it drinks twenty percent of the fuel in your boat,
Burning glucose like crazy, molto affamato it seems,
Mostly to pump out the ions, not to power your dreams —
Sodium rushing outward, potassium rushing back in,
Hungriest cell in the kingdom, under your own skin.
[Verse 4]
Most neurons quit dividing — post-mitotic, they're done,
No fresh copies coming, you got the ones you have won,
Per sempre, forever, this cell's gotta last,
From your first cry of morning to your very last gasp.
Treat it gentle, treat it kindly, it won't come around twice,
No understudy waiting, no reprinting the dice.
[Bridge]
So what makes it special, more than skin or bone?
Not the nucleus, not the Golgi, not standing alone —
It's the shape, lunga e sottile, branches stretching wide,
And a membrane running electric, corrente held inside.
Dendrites e axon — quello è parte due e tre,
Save that spark for later, next verse, you'll see.
[Chorus]
È una cellula — just a cell, nothing more,
Same old bricks as your skin, same old blueprint, same core,
Ma è speciale, aspetta, dendrites reaching far,
È una cellula — building block, building star.
[Outro]
Membrane, nucleus, mitochondria, soma, Nissl, Golgi too —
È una cellula, sì, proprio come te.
Hungry and lasting, built to carry a spark,
The neuron is a cell — now you know how it's made in the dark.