Todd Rundgren / Nearly Human / 1989
Parallel Lines
wistful, intellectually resigned, quietly aching
Todd Rundgren uses the geometry of parallel lines as a controlling metaphor for a connection that can never quite converge, even though the two people involved seem to run on adjacent, similar paths. The song moves from yearning and imaginative projection toward a reluctant acceptance that closeness itself is the impossible variable, not distance.
unrequited or asymmetrical connection the limits of empathy acceptance versus surrender fate and physics as metaphors for emotional distance longing for merger with another person
Who's speaking
A first-person narrator addresses a 'you' who occupies a parallel but unreachable existence; the narrator seems earnest and self-aware, more reliable in diagnosing the problem than in solving it, oscillating between hope and resignation.
What happens
The song opens with the narrator perceiving someone on a different plane of existence, unable to close the gap despite wanting to. It moves through attempts at imaginative empathy—trying to picture what the other might say or feel—before arriving at the geometric admission that some relationships are structurally incapable of intersecting. The middle section reframes this acceptance as an act of courage rather than defeat, then complicates that stance by questioning whether willpower can override natural law. By the end, the narrator concedes that even understanding and empathy can't satisfy the need for real contact, and the image of a train stuck on its track closes the song on a note of inevitability.
How it's built
The song alternates between verses of introspective reasoning and a refrain that restates the parallel-lines image with slight variation each time, reinforcing the idea of repetition without progress. The bridge-like sections complicate the refrain's fatalism by introducing counter-arguments (opposites attracting, the value of facing truth), only for the chorus image to reassert itself, mirroring the content: motion without convergence.
Section by section
Opening verse
“I can see you up on another level”
The narrator establishes an asymmetry of position from the start—closeness is visual or spiritual but not physical or emotional, setting up the impossibility that the rest of the song will elaborate.
Pre-chorus
The narrator's attempt to imagine the other person's voice or touch signals empathy as an act of imagination rather than actual exchange, foreshadowing the later idea that understanding alone won't be enough.
First chorus
“Parallel lines never do cross over”
The refrain crystallizes the song's thesis in geometric terms, presenting the relationship's failure not as anyone's fault but as a structural inevitability, almost mathematical in its certainty.
Second verse/bridge
Here the narrator reframes acceptance as courage, distinguishing between giving up and simply seeing clearly, though the uncertainty over how much of this stance is genuine strength versus performance keeps the tone unresolved.
Empathy verse
“So I send you the gift of empathy”
This section marks the narrator's most active gesture toward the other person, offering imagined understanding as a substitute for real contact, and admitting how thoroughly this substitute has been rehearsed internally.
Final section
The song's closing turn admits that empathy and comprehension don't resolve longing—if anything they intensify it—before the train image locks the metaphor into an image of forced, unchangeable motion, ending the song without resolution.
Craft
- extended metaphor
- The parallel-lines image runs through the entire song, standing in for two people whose lives run close but never truly meet, and it's reinforced by the closing train-on-a-track image, which literalizes the idea of motion without variation or contact.
- rhetorical questioning
- The narrator poses questions about what the other person might say or feel, and later about the balance between bravado and will, dramatizing uncertainty rather than resolving it.
- paradox
- The tension between 'facing the truth' meaning both surrender and not-surrender in different verses reflects the narrator's shifting relationship to acceptance, showing the idea evolving rather than remaining a fixed platitude.
- scientific/physical imagery
- References to physics and opposites attracting frame the emotional situation as governed by impersonal law, which distances the narrator from blame and makes the outcome feel inevitable rather than personal failure.
Reading it
The most persuasive reading treats this as a meditation on emotional or relational asymmetry, where two people can be intellectually or spiritually aligned yet never physically or emotionally converge, and the narrator's growth across the song is toward accepting that fact as a law rather than a wound. An alternative reading treats the 'you' as more allegorical—perhaps an idealized self, a lost potential, or even a divine or transcendent other the narrator can perceive but never reach, which would extend the physics metaphor to spiritual longing rather than romantic disappointment.
Context
Nearly Human (1989) is known for its live-in-the-studio, largely first-take recording approach and Rundgren's interest in soul and R&B textures. Lyrically the album engages recurring Rundgren themes of connection, self-examination, and emotional honesty. I don't have specific documented context about the writing circumstances of this particular song, so this reading rests on the lyric itself.
Listen for
- how the melody handles the recurring parallel-lines refrain—whether it resolves harmonically or stays suspended, mirroring the lyric's lack of convergence
- shifts in vocal tone between the imaginative, hopeful verses and the more resigned bridge sections
- the pacing/rhythm during the closing 'running on' repetition, which musically enacts the stuck-train image
- any dynamic buildup or restraint that underscores the tension between wanting closeness and accepting distance
About Todd Rundgren
Todd Harry Rundgren is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who has performed a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of the bands Nazz and Utopia. He is known for his sophisticated and often unorthodox music, his occasionally lavish stage shows, and his later experiments with interactive art.
b. 1948 / United States
Full biography and catalogue