Asymptotic

Song Meaning

The lyrics paint a picture of a relationship that's perpetually close but never quite touching, using mathematical concepts to describe the emotional distance. It opens with a direct address, calling someone "curvilinear" and a "nice graph to see" in "x-y space," immediately establishing a tone of admiration grounded in geometric terms. This isn't just abstract admiration, though; the narrator acknowledges the "complex" nature of the connection, hinting at underlying difficulties or nuances that prevent simple resolution. The desire to "cosine" suggests a wish for a more harmonious, perhaps cyclical or predictable, interaction, but this is deferred, indicating a present state of unresolved tension. The core of the song lies in the concept of being "asymptotic." This means the two individuals are moving closer and closer together, "on it / Till the end of linear time," but are destined to remain eternally separated by an infinitesimal gap. The phrase "divided / By the smallest slimmest line" emphasizes this near-miss, this constant proximity without true union. The narrator explicitly states the outcome: "As close as we could ever get / You'll be just out of reach," a poignant declaration of perpetual longing and unfulfilled potential. The craft here is undeniably clever, leaning heavily on calculus and geometry. The narrator calls the other person "integral," a term for finding the area under a curve, suggesting deep importance and foundational connection. Yet, they also describe themselves as "off on our own tangents," diverging paths that never meet. The final realization, "We were always parallel," solidifies the mathematical metaphor for a relationship that runs alongside but never intersects, a fate accepted with a resigned "oh well."