The Caber Doesn't Care About Your Feelings

Lyrics

[Intro]

Oh, caber, you old larch log from Braemar, September 1866,
Donald Dinnie's hands on your rough bark, 19 feet 6 inches of indifference.

[Verse 1]
You're 175 pounds of tapered pine, hoisted in the chill of 10 degrees Celsius,
wind biting through wool kilts, the crowd's breath fogging the air.
Bo would say you're a lever, fulcrum at the shoulder,
torque ripping through the kinematic chain, from steel-toed boots to calloused palms.
But I feel you in the nerves, the hippocampus plotting your arc before the toss.

[Chorus]
Caber, you don't care about feelings, no,
spinal discs compressing under your weight, Dr. Pope whispering of L4-L5 strain,
cortisol flooding the bloodstream, mitochondria screaming in the erector spinae.
Yet the brain anticipates, neurons firing for that twelve-o'clock flip,
probability low, Ludo calculates 0.27 chance on a damp field.
Intimate monster, you press against my vertebrae like a lover's secret.

[Verse 2]
Remember George Hackenschmidt, 1908, his will bending your mass,
but you snapped back, indifferent to the will, only physics and biology.
Smell of wet peat and rosin powder, your splintery skin against sweat-slick gloves.
I address you now, tool of the highlands, object of neural wars,
where anticipation meets the pain threshold, breath held in the gray midday light.

[Bridge]

In the preparation tent, damp canvas and linseed oil,
your weight tests the spine's resolve, fair play in the torque of chance.
Ludo's math dances in my synapses, Bayesian odds of a clean toss,
while the body knows the schedule, circadian pull toward the throw.

[Verse 3]
Haggis lingering on the tongue, oatcakes crumbling in pockets,
you thud into earth with a resonant thump, crowd's groan like a neural echo.
From armored trucks in foreign days to this grassy expanse,
you're the constant, caber, bridging war and sport in one breath-holding raid.

[Chorus]
Caber, you don't care about feelings, no,
spinal discs compressing under your weight, Dr. Pope whispering of L4-L5 strain,
cortisol flooding the bloodstream, mitochondria screaming in the erector spinae.
Yet the brain anticipates, neurons firing for that twelve-o'clock flip,
probability low, Ludo calculates 0.27 chance on a damp field.
Intimate monster, you press against my vertebrae like a lover's secret.

[Outro]

Oh, caber, in the Cairngorms' shadow, you're the manifold of tosses past,
Donald Dinnie's ghost in the wind, indifferent to our fragile frames.