Cavetown’s “This Is Home” Lyrics Meaning

by Amanda London· Published March 23, 2021· Updated April 19, 2023

Before delving into the lyrics of “This Is Home”, we must acknowledge Cavetown’s concurrent sexual orientation as well as his views on romance. For in addition to being a transgender, he is also what is referred to as asexual and aromantic. That means that he’s not into sex – or even romance for that matter.

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So at the beginning of the song, when the artist puts forth that he can’t fall in love, he means that more literally than most people who make such comments. But looking at the bright side of the matter, that also means that he can’t have his heart broken or have to deal with any of the other emotional dangers that come along with being smitten.

Indeed such an observation is sentimentally more or less what this song is based on. That is to say that the artist realizes that he is an unconventional individual. But instead of fighting against his nature, he is by and large embracing it, or let’s say trying to make the best out of everything that is going on with him both internally and externally.

Moreover it would appear, at least at some junctures in the lyrics, that he may be addressing a romantic interest.

Cavetown’s Disposition

But all that being noted, this isn’t necessarily the easiest song to understand. Cavetown wrote it himself, at a very young age and at the time when he was completely new to making music professionally. And at some points his amateurism, if you will, is evident in the lyrics. But again, there are certain things which we can derive from them concerning his overall personal disposition nonetheless.

For instance, we can postulate that he is suffering from some sort of confusion or even perhaps more accurately depression. We know this because in the second verse, he makes quite a few allusions to death, as in Cavetown ‘sometimes thinking he’s dead’.

This most likely once again has something to do with the unconventional path he has chosen in life. For instance, earlier in the verse he insinuates, in a roundabout way, that perhaps he does not feel truly free to be himself.

Such is to be expected of someone with his gender leanings. And overall what this track seems to be speaking to is the associated mental stress which would logically be part and parcel of his existence.

And not all of this is sourced internally. For instance, Cavetown may make statements like “get a load of this monster” from a third-person perspective. But he is doing so in the role of another person making observations about himself.

Thesis Sentiment of Lyrics

Or stated comprehensively, if we were to derive a thesis sentiment from this track, it wouldn’t be so much that the vocalist feels depressed, even when no one may be around. Nor would it be that some people perceive him as an oddball. Rather it would be more along the lines of him growing tired of these sensations. Or put bluntly, the artist has obviously grown weary – for lack of a better – of the pressure or hatred put on him from the outside world, as well as that which apparently exists in his own mind.

This Is Home

But that being said, he isn’t the type to run away or hide from the situation. Rather he concludes the song with the titular sentiment, that “strangely he feels at home in this place”. This is not to imply that he is actually comfortable. Such would be against everything that had been expressed in the lyrics up until that point.

But as put forth earlier, he has achieved balance in life by being able to perceive the positives of his lifestyle to counter the negatives he inevitably faces. And the title would be the ultimate expression of that disposition, being able to claim his current setting as “home” despite all of the delineated negativity it entails.

Or perhaps, going out on a limb a bit, we should acknowledge that Cavetown is in fact from the UK. And this is a country which has a very strong, pronounced LGBT community. And the narrator, even in his young age, knows that such does not exempt him from the persecution and internal pressures people such as himself experience. But still, this feeling of being at “home”, amongst his kind, keeps him from going over the edge.

Or holistically, what he is saying overall is that he has grown so accustomed to feelings internal and external strife that now such feels like “home”, i.e. nothing unusual to him.

Who is Cavetown?

Cavetown is a not a group, as some may be led to believe by the act’s moniker. Rather it is a single individual by the name of Robin Skinner who hails from London. In addition to being a professional musician he is also an accomplish YouTuber, with well over 1.5 million subscribers to his channel as of early 2021.

And he is even more popular on Spotify, a platform dedicated to music, concurrently enjoying nearly 6 million monthly listeners on the site.

And as far as his music career goes, despite only reaching 22 years of age as of the onset of 2021, by that time he already has four studio albums under his belt. The first three – Cavetown (2015), 16/04/16 (2016) and Lemon Boy (2018) – were self-released projects.

The fourth, 2020’s Sleepyhead, came out via Sire Records (whom he signed with in 2019). And it is that one that has proven to be the most-successful thus far, as in actually making an appearance on the UK Singles Chart as well as Billboard’s Heatseekers Albums listing.

Cavetown’s father is also a musicologist named Dr. David Skinner. It is he who first introduced him to making music. And by the way, Cavetown’s mom also happens to be a music teacher.

When did Cavetown release “This Is Home”?

Meanwhile “This Is Home”, which came out on 3 August 2015, is a non-album single. It is also the first song Cavetown ever released and as such, as implied earlier, is not associated with any label.

Also as of 2021, “This Is Home” appears to be one of the most-successful songs Cavetown has ever dropped. It is one of his few singles thus far to receive any type of certification. And that would be the gold standard the song has achieved via the RIAA.

In 2022, Cavetown released the song “Frog“, which also achieved global success.