Automatic Pilot

Lyrics

[Intro]
Marcus, in that dim lab light,
Washington University, 2001,
your hands on the cold keyboard,
the screen glowing with maps of rest.

[Verse 1]
Inside the tunnel of the fMRI scanner,
GE Signa model, serial number etched in steel,
the subject lies still, breath slow at 68 degrees Fahrenheit,
eyes closed against the narrow white walls.
You called it the default mode,
posterior cingulate cortex lighting up,
medial prefrontal whispering old stories.
No task, no focus, yet the energy flows,
twenty percent of the body's fuel burned in quiet.

[Chorus]
Automatic pilot, you take the wheel,
without a word, steering through daydreams.
Raichle, born in '37, you saw it first,
the brain's baseline hum, never truly off.
I feel you in my wandering thoughts,
that sterile scent of antiseptic wipes lingering.

[Verse 2]
Late evening, 9 PM, campus asleep,
ventilation system droning like neural pulses.
Stale black coffee in a Styrofoam cup,
untouched on the desk, steam long gone.
The scans show it: rest isn't empty,
it's the network weaving memories,
unnamed graduates poring over data points,
their faces blurred in the glow.

[Bridge]
What if I address you directly, autopilot?
In this confined space, head coil pressing,
breath fogging the plastic,
do you hear me? The gaps in the record,
those anonymized minds drifting,
their unspoken anxieties feeding the map.

[Verse 3]
Energy consumption steady, even in fog,
daydreams costing as much as puzzles solved.
Marcus, your quote echoes: baseline state,
changing how we see organization.
In St. Louis, under fluorescent hum,
the discovery unfolds, tendrils of thought.

[Chorus]
Automatic pilot, you take the wheel,
without a word, steering through daydreams.
Raichle, born in '37, you saw it first,
the brain's baseline hum, never truly off.
I feel you in my wandering thoughts,
that sterile scent of antiseptic wipes lingering.

[Outro]
So I lie here, in your grasp,
letting the default mode carry me,
resilient in the unrest,
gilded synapse firing softly.