Come Home With Me II Lyrics - Hadestown

Song Overview

Review & Highlights

Two names. Two heartbeats. In this one-minute exchange, Orpheus finds Eurydice in the underworld and tries to pull the world back into tune. The scene plays like a breath held - quick-fire lines, close-mic intimacy, strings and light percussion leaving room for silence to speak. The reprise reframes the original “Come Home with Me” as a rescue attempt, and the lyrics land differently now - not flirtation, but a lifeline. Then Eurydice’s warning cuts through, and we’re shoved toward “Papers (Intro),” where the romantic myth meets paperwork and pain. Key takeaway: the show uses repetition as fate - melodies and words come back with new stakes. Second takeaway: optimism can be brave and naive at once; both truths sit in Orpheus’ voice.

Creation History

The Broadway cast album was released in full on July 26, 2019 as the final “character drop,” with this track arriving in the Orpheus/Eurydice tranche. It functions as Act II’s hinge: a short reprise of the Act I meet-cute that now carries legal and moral weight. Earlier iterations of the score included a related number, “Come Home With Me II,” in the Off-Broadway era - a clue to how the creative team kept this motif as the emotional compass while the show evolved.

Song Meaning and Annotations

The opening line folds the past into the present. The reprise answers the meet-cute with a meet-again, flipping subtext to text.

“This is the first thing that Orpheus said to Eurydice when they met in the living world, and now it’s also the first thing he said to her in the Underworld.”

That echo is the point - the show treats memory like melody, returning motifs until they change color.

Identity re-enters on a whisper. Names are a spell that rebinds them after loss.

“Here, at the first sight of him, she remembers his name and he reminds her of hers.”

We hear relief and shock - two syllables each, hitting like a floodgate.

Hermes becomes the messenger who keeps the plot moving even offstage. Orpheus didn’t hear; the story had to be told to him.

“Hermes told Orpheus what happened to Eurydice in an earlier song when Orpheus went looking for her.”

The myth modernizes itself - information passes through someone’s mouth, not magic.

Guilt and agency wrestle in half-lines. He claims blame; she refuses it.

“Eurydice realizes at the end of ‘Flowers’ that it was her own fault she was stuck in Hadestown.”

The script refuses a tidy villain. Hunger, weather, contracts - they all sign the paper.

The little miracle is that calling works. He came. That matters more than perfection.

“Eurydice expresses that the fact that Orpheus even came to get her, that is enough.”

Romance here is practical - presence over promises.

Then the train line drops in like a jump-scare. It’s a fear dressed as a question: did you die for me?

“If he went on the train that means he had died and will now be subject to the same fate as her.”

Mortality becomes a transit system - very Hadestown.

Orpheus’ boast about singing past stone and wall is myth-scale but intimate in sound. The groove is folk-jazz - brushed drums, plucked strings - with a rhythm that walks more than runs.

“Orpheus’s song could make the stones dance.”

Myth meets muscle memory: music as keycard.

His confidence spikes again - a necessary delusion, maybe. The emotional arc starts soft, turns stubborn.

“Showing that Orpheus is still a little too optimistic and focused on the larger problems to listen to Eurydice and her more immediate concerns.”

He hears destiny; she hears danger.

Eurydice shuts the door before it slams on him. That “No!” is triage.

“This leads into the first time Orpheus and Hades meet... Orpheus still quite doesn’t understand the brutal realities of the world.”

The reprise ends with a check - love is loud, but law is louder. Onstage, the cut to the next number feels like a cliff.

Production, instrumentation, and texture

Arrangement keeps the room small - fiddle lines like threads, light trombone color, acoustic guitar and accordion nudging the harmony while the vocal dialogue sits almost conversational. The style fuses show tune clarity with folk cadence and a trace of New Orleans brass - the house sound of this score. The tempo walks, because the scene is about moving - out of hell if possible.

Language notes, symbols, and idioms

Names operate as amulets. “Train” functions as a modern Styx - one ride, no return. “Wall” is both border and bureaucracy. The promise “I can sing us home” is the show’s thesis set in plain speech: music is agency, but it can’t erase a signature.

Key Facts

• Artist: Reeve Carney, Eva Noblezada
• Composer: Anaïs Mitchell
• Lyricist: Anaïs Mitchell
• Producers: Todd Sickafoose, David Lai, Anaïs Mitchell
• Release Date: July 26, 2019
• Album: Hadestown (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
• Label: Sing It Again Records
• Length: 1:01
• Track #: 24
• Language: English
• Genre: Showtunes, folk-jazz fusion, Americana color
• Instruments: violin, trombone, piano, accordion, guitar, glockenspiel, cello, bass, drums, light percussion
• Mood: urgent, tender, cautionary
• Music style: conversational duet, motif reprise
• Poetic meter: irregular iambic fragments with speech-rhythm breaks
• © Copyrights: 2019 Hadestown Broadway/Sing It Again Records

Questions and Answers

Where does this reprise sit in the show’s plot?

Act II - after “Flowers,” right before “Papers (Intro),” when Orpheus catches up and hits the wall of contract law.

Why is the dialogue so short and clipped?

Because it’s a memory turned alarm. The original meet-cute returns as triage - the same words, new stakes.

Is this the track where Orpheus claims his music can move stone?

Yes - he says he sang beyond the wall and can sing them home, planting the seed for “Epic III.”

Did this exact number exist before Broadway?

A closely related piece, “Come Home With Me II,” appeared in Off-Broadway era materials - same motif, different dramaturgy.

How long is it, and who sings it on the album?

1 minute 1 second - a duet led by Reeve Carney and Eva Noblezada on the Original Broadway Cast Recording.

Awards and Chart Positions

The track itself wasn’t a single, but the parent album won the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album and topped the Billboard Cast Albums chart, peaking at 49 on the Billboard 200. The Broadway production won 8 Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Original Score.

Additional Info

The cast album rolled out in “character drops” across June and July 2019, with this Orpheus/Eurydice segment completing the full release on July 26. The reprise’s final “No!” isn’t melodrama - it’s a safety rail, because the next stop in the sequence is a beating and a contract lesson.