My House Lyrics – Matilda

Song Overview

Song Credits

• Producer: Chris Nightingale & Tim Minchin
• Composer & Lyricist: Tim Minchin
• Orchestration: Chris Nightingale
• Keyboards & Conductor: Bruce O’Neil
• Recording Engineer / Mastering Engineer: Rupert Coulson
• Recorded at: AIR Studios, London
• Release Date: 2011-09-13
• Genre: Musical-Theatre, Pop
• Album: Matilda The Musical (Original London Cast Recording)
• Language: English
• Label: Royal Shakespeare Company
• Length: 3 : 47

Song Meaning and Annotations

My House shuffles onstage like a shy guest, humming gratitude in every corner. Miss Honey inventories her threadbare cottage – roof, door, lamp – transforming poverty into poetry. Each humble object is a talisman: proof that safety can be handmade. The melody floats in 6/8, rocking like a cradle, but Tim Minchin slips sly chromatic turns beneath the lullaby; comfort here has been hard-won.

Yet the real heartbeat hides in the duet structure. Mid-song, the Escapologist – a ghost of memory – drifts in, doubling Miss Honey’s lines. She can’t see him, but we do. It’s theatre’s X-ray: love persists even after the body leaves. And when Matilda cradles the acrobat’s white scarf, the orphan and the teacher merge – two souls patched together by stories.

Minchin’s lyrics lean on homely consonants (“this table is perfect for tea”), grounding the scene in oak and kettle steam. But the subtext bites: calling four damp walls “enough” reveals the abuse that made her set the bar so low. Gratitude and resignation tussle under each note.

“It isn’t much – but it is enough for me.”

The line is mantra and mask. Miss Honey insists she feels “no fear”, yet she’s singing to silence it. The paradox mirrors childhood itself: kids imagine monsters under the bed; adults trap them in the past.

Verse Highlights

Opening Stanza

A waltz-like swing, woodwind pads soft as quilt batting. The roof-door-floor triad sketches Maslow’s bottom tier with nursery-rhyme clarity.

Escapologist Entrance

Strings shimmer; harmony slips to the relative minor. The phantom father overlays her melody – two generations sharing one heartbeat.

Matilda’s Silent Realisation

Onstage, the child fingers that scarf like a detective dusting prints. No lyric needed – her face completes the rhyme.

Similar Songs

1. “Home” – Beauty and the Beast
   Both tracks paint modest rooms as fortresses. Belle dreams of escape, yet lists the books and windows that keep her alive. Miss Honey does the same, but she’s already free – just too bruised to notice. The orchestration in each uses warm strings to sketch hearth-light.
2. “Somewhere That’s Green” – Little Shop of Horrors
   Audrey’s plastic-fence fantasy mirrors Miss Honey’s teacup pride. Suburban lawn or tiny cottage – hope shrinks to fit the cage. Minchin’s ironic sweetness cousins Alan Menken’s bittersweet 60s pastiche.
3. “A House Is Not A Home” – Dionne Warwick
   Warwick croons the adult version of Miss Honey’s creed: walls mean nothing without love. Where the pop standard sways in soulful 4/4, My House waltzes, but both pulse with the same yearning.

Questions and Answers

Why does Miss Honey call her sparse cottage “enough”?

Because after years under Trunchbull’s tyranny, ownership of anything – even peeling walls – feels radical.

What role does the Escapologist play in the number?

He’s a memory made visible. His harmony shows parental love still shielding Miss Honey, even in absence.

How does the staging heighten the song’s theme?

The cottage set is child-sized, forcing actors to duck – adults literally bend to fit children’s worlds.

Is there a notable cover of the song?

Yes – Tony-winner Heather Headley recorded a gospel-tinged rendition in 2018, giving the refrain cathedral lift.

Does the track appear in other media?

The Netflix 2022 film adaptation features Lashana Lynch leading a cinematic version that swells with full orchestra.