SONG: Cluster Anatomy

SONG:

. (I made an .ogg version, too.)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: Science News, 2 June 2020, “A new 3-D map illuminates the ‘little brain’ within the heart,” as used in the post “Mapping the heart’s little brain.”

ABSTRACT:
At first, I thought I might do a song about two entries – because the mapping the little brain one wound up getting posted right next to a mapping of a Roman city by ground-penetrating radar. I was going to try to interpolate a verse from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and everything. But the song didn’t write itself until I was sitting in my parents’ house (social distancing!) for a Father’s Day brunch and playing a very old, small guitar tuned down to I think a C. And a chord progression suggested itself, and while other folks were talking in the next room, I stuck my phone on my knee and recorded the guitar on voice memo to remember it.

Then, I wound up just… stretching that file to fit, with the chatter and everything, because I like that loose-stringed sound. I also liked the way the chords sounded half like Wall of Voodoo and some fraction like the Thermals. An old-fashioned, lo-fi New Wave Western about having a second brain with its own ideas controlling your heart.

The last thing I did, just now, tonight, was record the vocals. Immediately prior, I managed to dunk my phone in a pot full of water next to the sink in the dark kitchen as the family slept. I hope it recovers. Probably some of the frustration from that lapse worked its way into the performance. One can only hope. It’s a frustrating situation.

Hearts are weird. They have minds of their own. We’re not exactly captives of them, but there’s some kind of struggle going on all the time.

LYRICS:

I’m not alone in here
Been thinking other thoughts
Between my meeting minds
Before my heart … stops
Before my heart … stops
Before my heart … stops

I get these strange ideas
Somewhere inside my chest
I think he’s keeping time
A mind from somewhere else

I can’t say his name
Or he skips a beat
6-5-4-2
Cluster anatomy

BR:
…Cluster anatomy
Give me a 3D map
To guide me past this trap

…Cluster anatomy
It’s intracardiac
Show me a better path

Before my heart breaks up
Before my heart wakes up
Before my heart wakes