L'Empreinte

Lyrics

[Intro]
The first time, it was a choice.
A stumble through tangled brush.
A thought so slow, it was almost silence.
The second time, a whisper of a path.

[Verse 1]
And then the call goes out.
A signal, firing in the dark, asking to be remembered.
Asking for the wrappers to come.
For the waxy sheen that Virchow saw under glass,
mid-nineteenth century.
He called it myelin.
I call it the beginning of a promise.

[Chorus]
And you wrap the axon, layer by fatty layer.
Paving the dirt road with white matter.
Making the signal faster, the thought clearer.
This is the imprint. L'Empreinte.
The habit becoming a highway.
The choice becoming an echo of itself.

[Verse 2]
The Oligodendrocyte reaches out fifty arms at once.
A generous god in the quiet center.
The Schwann cell takes one nerve, and holds it close.
A loyal friend in the wild periphery.
And Ranvier found the silence, the little gaps.
The fine-adjustment knob.
The nodes where the impulse finally learns to jump.

[Chorus]
And you wrap the axon, layer by fatty layer.
Paving the dirt road with white matter.
Making the signal faster, the thought clearer.
This is the imprint. L'Empreinte.
The habit becoming a highway.
The choice becoming an echo of itself.

[Bridge]
This is how a pianist's fingers find the keys in the dark.
This is how the baker’s hands know the dough.
This is how you learn my name until it's just a shape on your tongue.
And this is how you learn a prejudice.
This is how a lie, repeated, feels like truth in your own bones.
Be careful what you practice.
The highway doesn't ask where it's going.
It only knows the way.

[Outro]
Eighty-five percent lipid.
A fatty ghost.
The thought no longer thinks itself.
It just travels.
Smooth. White. Fast.