Perfect Symmetry

The title track, produced by Keane at Teldex in Berlin, is a five-minute epic that Rice-Oxley said carried a hint of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. He wrote that it dealt with the futile distractions of the human race, and that it "might be the best song I've ever written". Chaplin has also counted it among the best songs Rice-Oxley has written.

Speaking to The Sun, Rice-Oxley framed part of it as a message to suicide bombers: rather than blow themselves up, they could spend their time with the people they love. He said the subject was dark but the message was hope, and humanity's capacity to keep making beautiful things.

It was the album's third single, released on 29 December 2008 with a radio edit that drops the introduction and the original second verse. It reached only 150 in the UK, at the time the lowest chart place for an officially released Keane single, but Q's Best of 2008 named it song of the year. PopMatters heard it aiming for the rafters and very nearly getting there.

Video

In the video Chaplin is seen singing on a TV in a futuristic glass room, while the rest of the band are in another room. Objects appear in symmetrical arrangements, and each chorus opens on a different place in the world, first a waterfall and then mountains.

Live

It entered the set on the opening night of the world tour at The Forum in London on 29 September 2008, and was played 29 times that year. setlist.fm logs 257 performances in all, most recently in Mérida, Mexico, in November 2025. The upload in the hypersongs web is the official music video.