You’re Not Home

This song definitely encapsulates the wistful mood of Cause & Effect. I really like this song, it’s quite emotional, and the slow buildup, starting from the ethereal sounding opening, to the climax with the layering of voices, and the hopeful lyrics leading into sad lyrics- it brings me to tears.

I think the first and second verses displays the emptiness shown by the writer. Like things used to be perfect with this other person, and it no longer is. Like everything has fallen apart and he’s alone again. There’s a sense of familiarity in the lyrics, as he’s stating simple everyday life moments he’s experienced such as his lovers hand slipping from his, or the bike wheel turning in the backyard. Yet it’s so sad because that’s all just a memory and everything is empty and lonely now and completely different to the way it was before. It’s almost as though the colour has been drained out of life.

There’s this repetitiveness with the words ‘cold’, ‘home’ and ‘phone’ throughout the song which is quite depressing. He’s saying that his life has become monotonous without his lover at home with him, and that he’s become quite depressed, and all he’s been able to do is ‘sit and stare into (his) phone’ almost like a robot devoid of all emotion.

The song picks up in the choruses, “I love that silver-grey first morning light I see that fearless love in your blue eyes Think I can picture some new shape of life” It’s very hopeful. The writer sounds like he is appreciating life and his lover. It’s in present tense, so it sounds as though he’s pretending he’s back in time in a moment where things were going well with this other person, at a time where he was content. In his memories he enjoyed being with the other person, and finally felt like life had worth and had new meaning to him. The lyric in the chorus, ‘I love that silver-grey first morning light’ contrasts with the second verse, ‘A lifeless wind burns through the downland’. I think the verse lyric represents the present tense. Like now everything is bleak to him because this other person is not with him anymore, and he’s in a state of emptiness. He can’t see life around him as beautiful as he did when he was with the other person. In the chorus lyric he’s talking about his appreciation for the light in the mornings, like he’s appreciating his old memories. He used to see the morning light as something beautiful and associated it with memories of times with the other person, but now associates nature and weather states with his loneliness without his lover. It reflects his depressive state.

Then there’s the downfall with the lyrics. It gives a sense of emptiness of something great in the writer’s life that used to be there but isn’t there now. “But now you're not home No, you're not home” This other person is no longer around, and him and the other person have presumably separated.

This song feels sad, also because it sounded like the writer was in a stable relationship with this other person, that he appreciated this other person so much, but things went south. He had everything, and then he had nothing. Also that sense of ‘home’. As though this other person meant so much to the singer and they were in love enough to move in together. Like they had it all, and their futures were mapped out. It seems like that stability is completely gone, and the singer is alone.

I think this song is about a divorced dad, whose kids have just been picked up by their mom. The front door clicks as the kids rush out to meet her in the driveway; they leave their clothes on the floor and their bikes in the yard. Their little hands slip out out of his hand. He is begining to see that life will go on, in a different shape than it had before, and that's hopeful. But right at this moment, you (his kids) are not home, and that's rough.