[Verse 1]
No drummer in the circuit, yet the beat still drops,
A loop of neurons firing before the signal stops,
No need for orders shouted down the spinal hall,
The pattern builds itself, no conductor there at all,
Call it a generator, central as can be,
It writes the rhythm blind, no eyes required to see.
[Chorus]
C-P-G, the beat machine,
Flip-flop, see-saw, half-center scene,
Two gangs of neurons, trading the floor,
One quiets down, the other wants more,
Walking, swimming, chewing, the breath that you take,
Rhythm born from wiring, no baton to shake.
[Verse 2]
Graham Brown saw it back in nineteen-eleven's light,
Flexors and extensors locked in a muted fight,
Each side suppresses, silences its twin,
Till fatigue taps out and rebound lets it spin,
Antiphonal's the word for voices taking turns,
One side hums, one listens, then the balance overturns.
[Chorus]
C-P-G, the beat machine,
Flip-flop, see-saw, half-center scene,
Two gangs of neurons, trading the floor,
One quiets down, the other wants more,
Walking, swimming, chewing, the breath that you take,
Rhythm born from wiring, no baton to shake.
[Verse 3]
Lamprey in the water, tadpole in the pond,
Spinal cord alone can send a wave beyond,
Sten Grillner traced it, segment after segment glows,
A ripple down the body tells the tail which way it flows,
Cut the cord from body, still the wave will run,
The swimming song keeps playing though the brain is done.
[Verse 4]
Inside a lobster's stomach, thirty neurons scheme,
Grinding up the dinner like a tiny gastric team,
Eve Marder poked the channels, mixed them every way,
Different wiring, same old tune, the rhythm stays,
So circuits aren't a blueprint carved in stone and glue,
Many paths of chemistry can lead the beat on through.
[Verse 5]
Deep inside the brainstem, breathing finds its home,
Pre-Bötzinger complex, never left alone,
Pacemaker cells keep nudging, steady, soft, and slow,
Mixing in neuromodulators, telling where to go,
Inhibition, pacemakers, chemicals that bend,
Three ingredients stirred together, rhythms without end.
[Bridge]
No metronome required, no outside spark to lend,
The circuit is the music, the means become the end,
Mutual whispers hushing, then the hush will break,
That's the architecture rhythm learns to make.
[Chorus]
C-P-G, the beat machine,
Flip-flop, see-saw, half-center scene,
Two gangs of neurons, trading the floor,
One quiets down, the other wants more,
Walking, swimming, chewing, the breath that you take,
Rhythm born from wiring, no baton to shake.
[Outro]
Half-center, lamprey wave, lobster's hungry drum,
Pre-Bötzinger humming till the breath will come,
No rhythm from outside, the circuit holds the key,
Central pattern generators — the body's own decree.