Lead vocalist Mike Hranica explained the story behind the song to Noisecreep: "'Home for Grave' is the most blatantly fictional song on the album in that the lyrics are about this little old man that basically just wants to do his best but he never amounts to anything and he ends up dying, life is pretty much summed up in total meaninglessness," he said. "That's the idea of the song and the misery the song looks to speak of within the context of 8:18 and an album that is primarily or entirely based off suffering. So yeah, lyrically the song just enraptures that or it looks at this man."

Hranica expanded the song into a 53-page book subtitled A (Somewhat Neverending) Short Story, which chronicles the unremarkable life of one Ian Mitchells. Hranica's fictional tale terms Mitchells' life an "unintentionally meaningless existence," but the singer told Billboard magazine that there's something to celebrate within that. "I adore monotony within fiction," he explained. "Anyone who reads 'Home For Grave' knows routine is the primary backbone of the story, and I just love writing about that routine. Someone like Jean Paul Sartre, he does that within his stories. I think it's very compelling, and I feel very drawn to it in my own writing, just exploring that routine."

Hranica preciously wrote One & A Half Hearts, which took its inspiration from the songs on the Devil Wears Prada's 2011 album Dead Throne.