Intro
Cavetown is one of my favorite music artists. I started listening to him earlier this year and have become very interested in him and his music, because he has written many songs as a teenager and tackled topics that I, as a teenager, can relate too. One of my favorite examples is Boys Will Be Bugs, which I learned to play when I first started playing ukulele.
He has been making music for just over eight years now. He has developed a lot in that time. It's fun to go back and listen to older songs and see how much he's developed his music over time. I've seen lots of great things about him, he always stands up for what he thinks is right, is nice to nearly everyone, and always seems to be smiling.
Artist Background
Robin Skinner was born on December 15, 1998 in Oxford, England. He grew up with lots of exposure to the arts, especially music. Many of his family members were musicians. His grandmother was a country singer in the 1950s and was also on television. His mother plays the flute in many orchestras and his father is the Director of Music at Cambridge University and founded an award-winning musical ensemble.
Robin released his first album in 2013 at the age of 14. He produced and recorded it in his bedroom and still produces many albums there today. He originally posted his music on Youtube and, after getting fairly popular, started selling albums on Bandcamp. He recently made public that he is a transgender man, meaning he was born female and has transitioned to male. (Gaytimes) He learned to play guitar at the age of 8, taught by his dad. (About Cavetown)
Song Intro
The song that I am focusing on is called Dysphoric. It was released on November 16, 2014 on his album GD Vibes, which included more popular songs such as Hug All Ur Friends and Lov Song. (Bandcamp) This, like most of his songs, was produced, written, and performed by Cavetown. It was played on ukulele and has been performed live a few times. This song is about the struggles of gender dysphoria and not feeling like you fit the gender you were born into. There is a lot of emotion in this song and it is very strong.
Don't let me see what I am
Cause I can't stand it, no I can't
I'm coming back round again
It's been over a year, I thought this was the end
And now I don't remember comfort
Because what I am is what I'm not
I don't belong here, it's just hopeless
Find me a way out if you love me at all
Don't let me hear what they say
Cause I can't stand it everyday
I'm thinking that I should leave now
And I don't think I'm coming back this time
Cause now I don't remember comfort
Because what I am is what I'm not
This phantom skin it's weird to live in
So find me a way out if you love me at all
Song Analysis
This song is very meaningful in its lyrics and even its instrumental parts. Whether you realize it or not, your brain can still interpret these little things in how you experience the music. The song conveys a sense of loneliness going through things that nobody else can help.
This whole song is played on one ukulele with no layering of other instruments other than his voice. In most songs there are many layers so the singularity of the ukulele gives a sense of loneliness enforcing the message of how he is feeling. The song starts off with the picking of single strings as he sings about his own emotions and how he feels on the inside and moves on to faster strumming while he sings about how he is impacted socially by other people. The picking feels more like how you would feel alone and the strumming feels like when you are with other people but are being hurt.
The lyrics in the beginning of the song are about how he feels going through everything and dealing with dysphoria. In the first verse he says "don't let me see what I am," most likely meaning he doesn't want to see what he is like because he doesn't feel comfortable with the body he was born with and it makes him feel worse. I think that the first verse is about the feeling of dysphoria coming back after he had been feeling better about himself.
The second verse seems to be more about how he is affected by other people just based on who he is. Trans people face a lot of hate from people that either don't understand or don't like people that are different than them. "Don't let me hear what they say," is the first line of the second verse. I think that this means that he doesn't want to hear the bad things that people say about him because he "can't stand it everyday." He says that he thinks he should leave which is most likely an effect of how he feels and what people say that make him feel bad.
The chorus has two slightly different versions but I think that they have a similar meaning. "Now I don't remember comfort," most likely is referencing the feeling that he is out of place. He says "what I am is what I'm not," because he feels like his body doesn't match up to who he actually is. He feels like he doesn't belong and that he should just give up because he thinks he never will. The final line of the chorus feels like a plea for someone to help him though he knows that nobody can actually stop him from feeling this.
I think that this song was written when he was feeling especially bad about himself and felt like he would never be able to get through it. It seems like a simple song but it has a lot of weight to it. It shows that you can always push through, even in times like this. You can see the difference between this song and later songs and see that he is still able to get through it and deal with whatever happens. It is a song about one specific thing but I think that it has aspects that deal with many other things as well.
Conclusion
I chose this song because all aspects of it emphasize multiple things. It explores a very meaningful topic and you can tell it came right from the artist's heart. It isn't just a song that shows how great life can be but it actually conveys how he feels instead of sugarcoating it. I think that you can listen to the meaning of this song and you don't have to feel bad about it. In life there are always highs and lows. This song shows that you can always get through them.
Citations
“About.” Cavetown, www.cavetown.co.uk/cv.
Minaeva, Mariia. “The Music of Cavetown: A Helping Hand for Mental Health Issues.”
ReViews Magazine, 15 Sept. 2019,
reviewsmagazine.net/the-music-of-cavetown-a-helping-hand-for-mental-health-issues/.
Robledo, Jordan, et al. “Cavetown Apologises for Resurfaced Anti-Semitic, Racist and
Transphobic Comments.” GAY TIMES, 12 Sept. 2020,
www.gaytimes.co.uk/culture/cavetown-apologises-for-resurfaced-anti-semitic-racist-
and-transphobic-comments/.
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