This Is The Place Lyrics – Two Strangers
This Is The Place Lyrics
This is the place
This is the preschool where we used to go
These are the streets
These are the dollar vans and delis that I used to know
This is the church
Where everyone knew me by name
This is the place
Where nothing changes and where nothing is ever the same
[Robin, spoken]
Wanna take a detour?
[Dougal, spoken]
What about the cake?
[Robin, spoken]
W?'ve got time
[Robin]
This is the street
[Dougal, spoken]
What street?
[Robin]
This is th? block where you can pick up whatever you need
Ten dollar shoes, fake nails, a broken record player, Cuban quesadillas and weed
I used to ride my bike around this neighbourhood
I never thought I'd run out of space
And the cats in the bodegas
The kids on every corner playing pickup
And graffiti on the subway, baby
This is the place
[Dougal]
Wait, I know this place
This is the street from the beginning of Ghostbusters 2
[Robin, spoken]
I don't know, maybe
[Dougal, spoken]
This is scene we see Sigourney Weaver
Step in psychomagnotherical goo
Are you serious?
[Robin & Dougal]
Right over there, that's Brooklyn Public Library
My grandma used to take us to read
And the sounds along the avenue (The lights in every window)
If you're look for the beating heart of Brooklyn, baby
This is the place
[Dougal & Robin, spoken]
And you actually lived here?
For 20 years
And this still counts as real New York?
This is Brooklyn, man, this is the only part that's real
[Robin]
This is the place
Where you can come and watch the city on Saturday nights
This is the place
That pizzeria makes the greatest white slice in South Crown Heights
Hundreds of cabs fly by into Manhattan
Hundreds of trains roll down to Coney Island
Thousands of planes fly out and never know
Whatever happiness they're trying to chase
This is the place
This is the street
Song Overview
“This Is The Place” flips the show’s compass. Robin steps off the subway into memory, and suddenly Brooklyn turns into a guided tour with heart. The number appears on the Studio Cast EP released February 21, 2024, and later as track 5 on the Original London Cast album dated July 26, 2024. Producer and orchestrator Lux Pyramid keeps the mix nimble and character-first.
Review & Highlights
Review
The song works because it trades tourist neon for local light. Robin narrates her block - bodegas, dollar vans, delis - and the groove moves like a stroll that keeps finding new corners. Patter gives way to lift; the melody opens as pride breaks through her guard. Lux Pyramid’s production lets the storytelling breathe: piano and kit up front, with little bursts of winds like street noise around them. On the EP she feels close-mic’d and conversational; on the album she sounds taller, like the city.
Plot
We’re mid-errand with a cake deadline when Robin detours into her old neighborhood. Dougal tries to pin every corner to a movie still, but Robin’s tour wins - school steps, church doors, the library her grandma loved. The scene doesn’t just map Brooklyn; it maps her. By the button, we know what she misses and why she stays wary.
Creation History
Written by Jim Barne and Kit Buchan, arranged and produced by Lux Pyramid, the track first landed publicly on the eight-song Studio Cast EP in February 2024 and returned on the 15-track Original London Cast album that July. The creative team’s credits - Tim Jackson directing and Soutra Gilmour’s design - carried from the Kiln Theatre run into the West End, and later into the A.R.T. engagement.
Key takeaways
- Place as character - the writing treats Brooklyn like a lead who knows your secrets.
- Dialogue and duet share the wheel, so jokes land without flattening the feeling.
- Production aims for clarity and motion, built to work on headphones and onstage.
Song Meaning and Annotations
At its core, the number is a homecoming monologue disguised as a tour. Robin keeps saying “This is the place” like she’s convincing herself as much as Dougal. That repetition has a job: it nails down reality while her life keeps shifting underfoot.
Style-wise, it’s contemporary musical theatre with pop polish. The rhythm sits in an easy mid-tempo; syllables tick like crosswalk signals. When the harmony widens on lines about cabs, trains, and planes, you hear an urban heartbeat that stretches beyond one street.
The emotional arc runs from guarded to glowing. She starts with landmarks - school, church, deli - and ends in a wider aerial view, watching traffic braid together like choices she hasn’t made yet. It’s pride with a melancholy edge.
The text loves specificity. Ten-dollar shoes, cats in bodegas, pickup games on corners - tiny images that out-argue any skyline cliché. Dougal’s film-geek riff about “Ghostbusters II” and “psychomagnotherical goo” plays the foil: second-hand New York vs. the one you actually live in.
There’s a duet sleight-of-hand here too. He keeps trying to anchor the map with movie lore; she answers with muscle memory. Their lines finally braid, and the neighborhood turns into a shared frame. That’s the show’s thesis: two people telling one city back to each other until it changes them both.
Production, instrumentation, color
Lux Pyramid keeps the palette agile: rhythm section setting the pace, piano comping that leaves space for banter, little brass and wind tags like street-corner punctuation. The balance favors lyric clarity over spectacle, which fits a song about listening to a city you thought you’d outgrow.
Context and culture
The Studio Cast EP functioned like a proof-of-concept - eight songs to seed playlists - followed by a full cast album once the West End transfer hit. That release strategy helped individual tracks like this one travel outside the theatre bubble.
Key Facts
- Artist: Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York) company - vocals by Sam Tutty & Dujonna Gift
- Composers/Lyricists: Jim Barne & Kit Buchan
- Producer/Orchestrations: Lux Pyramid