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The Holywell Numbers

by Sophie's Dream

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1.
i would like to do just one proper thing in my life if it was us, well, that'd be alright but you twist and you turn you're hard to pin down, i'm slow to learn i keep getting lost, things vanish in the mist i never thought that i would live in a place like this the pipes run putrid, your breath stinks i can't tell my parents, i don't know what they'd think you've been to china, you've been to france you walk around the flat in just your underpants you're not trying to hurt me, you're just being yourself i am scared of your freedom, you're ashamed of your wealth i don't know why i came here, i can't see how this ends i get lonely in crowded rooms, i'm not sure if i like our friends i am trying to wake you, don't wanna go out alone you are lost in dreaming like the spires of your new home and you mumble "look, babe, it'll be all right if you want we can just stay in tonight i would rather hang out with you anyway" you always know what i need you to say as if i'm glass and you see right through why should i need anything from you? you roll over to make room on the bed i don't know how you got in my head and i don't know how i ended up in this town but if we hold it together, i will try not to let you down i would like to do just one proper thing in my life if it was us, well, that'd be all right but it's hard because i think i might not be as simple as i thought i was
2.
dressed to kill, it's hard to catch a thrill but as you always like to say, if we don't, then who will? chills every time you touch my wrist hell can't be half as cool as this i say that we look famous, you say that we are even the moon is not so vain, but then the moon has scars you shine in the darkness, more beautiful than bollywood stars oo all pretend, introduce me as your friend that's not the way you put it in those late nite texts that you send you don't need to explain yourself go on and dance with someone else i'll just hang here, it's more fun to watch from afar camera pans from the lonely girl who's drinking at the bar to our heroine as she winks and spins, dancing like bollywood stars oo you'll marry someone your parents would approve of the wedding guests will drink a toast to true love and in the gutters of calcutta, shell-shocked and bereft i'll be shouting i object as i drink myself to death call a car, before things go too far never meant to ruin your fun with some maudlin dtr you'll call me in a day or so you're sorry, i already know but i'll let it go, cause apparently that's who we are it drives me almost to despair, this love of ours we'll see our names in the halls of fame with the romances of bollywood stars oo
3.
Londoners 03:07
fighting in a public bathroom in brixton you got some good hits in i was proud of you you curse and revile me you ask why i'm smiling hey, it's just nice to know that you care too i made you into something more than what you oughta be i deluded myself you might think a lot of me you can cry, you can scream you can punch at random spots in the air i could shout down the street that you ruined my life the londoners don't care crying underneath the roadways of vauxhall i've got fuck all to do and three more hours to kill i don't wanna see you on the train back home and i've never felt worse than feeling sure i will you were the one who was with me at the start of it you were the last pure and uncorrupted part of it and now there's a hole at the heart of it i thought they would stop and stare when i came for you, real rage in my eyes but the londoners don't care
4.
dreams come and dreams go i dream of living on the moon this day will drag on this day will fall to night too soon rain beats against the building sides broad street flowing like the tides through the sewers, to the sea it all comes flowing back to me it was you i wanted to be with all along by the time i realized it you were gone on fire island, 1985, you asked where i was going, barely alive i can hear it still just get the time spent, never mind the cost awake in bed at night, there's another day lost and the chattering crowds throng and press in the streets and i push my way through and i make myself eat and i turn the pages and i smudge the ink and i keep myself busy and don't let myself think like each day is a maze that i have to get through and a single wrong turn could bring me face to face with me and you it was you i wanted to be with all along by the time i realized it you were gone on fire island, 1985, you asked where i was going, barely alive i can hear it still dreams come and dreams go i dream i let things slip away it rained on fire island it rains here almost every day and i wasn't brave, i let you go every time i look in the mirror i know and i try not to look and i end up here it is like yesterday, it has been thirty years i'm still trying to get there, i am always too late and your ulcers and lesions suppurate in some hospital up by the tappan zee and i'm careening towards whatever it was that became of me it was you i wanted to be with all along by the time i realized it you were gone
5.
Worse 04:24
big fur coats, it's some new fad it doesn't keep out the damp and it looks bad they line up outside the clubs, they wonder who made blues they get drunk and vomit on each other's shoes on hythe bridge street in the dead of night they hang over the river like birds in flight they shout and they sing as they march up the turl they could do anything, they're not afraid of the world i don't remember if i was ever as young and as dumb as them but what oh what wouldn't i give to have it back again temperature drops but it'll never snow nothing left to learn that i would want to know nothing left to say that could make me speak forecast says it's gonna rain all week and if it rains all week, then i'll just stay inside i should head out now, try to glimpse the sky and i had better take a sweater cause the weather will only get worse the clouds can try to hold it all inside but something has got to burst can't make something out of nothing i know that i'm getting worse no traces left in this heartless breast of the way i loved at first can't get somewhere out of nowhere i know that i'm getting worse no signals sound no survivors found of this all-devouring curse can't make something out of nothing i know that i'm getting worse no traces left in this heartless breast of the way i loved at first
6.
i should write a letter to vancouver that's the only place i've still got friends looking for some space to maneuver dead ends, that's all i got, dead ends spend hours trying to pull it all together go back as far as memory extends the pieces drift away as light as feathers loose ends, that's all i got, loose ends the number for vancouver's disconnected accept this fact and all that it portends once lived my life among the unprotected bad ends, that's all i got, bad ends
7.
sometimes i imagine how you probably see me now the traitor who got everything they wanted and i try to imagine you the way that you asked me to do the way you've always been, young and pissed and haunted you can ignore me forever you can pretend it's not real but i want you to know that i'm still holding up my end of the deal and if you never forgive me well i guess that's okay at least i got to be the king of idiot mountain for a day it gets dark and i get scared it gets cold and i don't know where where the world i used to know has up and gone and i delete the final line and i rewrite it a thousand times but what i write to you will always turn out wrong and i've been feeling weird lately you don't care how i feel but i want you to know that i'm still holding up my end of the deal and if i was afraid for year and years and years that things would turn out this way at least i got to be the king of idiot mountain for a day and if i ever see you again i don't know what i'll say, but hey, at least i got to be the king of idiot mountain for a day
8.
i could make a brand new friend but it won't matter in the end that box steals souls that box steals souls from the marshes to the shoals all the people it controls that box steals souls i could try to make things right but i won't even catch your sight that box steals souls that box steals souls from the woodlands to the knolls from the schoolhouse to the polls that box steals souls we could try to make a home but your mind will rove and roam that box steals souls that box steals souls from your last few dreams and goals to the way your eyes go dull that box steals souls when we were young, we used to sing but its tendrils got on everything when we were young, we used to sing but its tendrils got on everything i could try to move with pride but it's all rotting from inside that box steals souls that box steals souls from the way we lived before-- i can't remember anymore that box steals souls
9.
Hyperborea 04:28
monday nowhere, hot as blazes don't explain, it just confuses me you're losing me tuesday nowhere, cold as truth is don't pretend, it just reduces me you're losing me there's somewhere north of north where we can't go feathers block our vision, thick as snow wednesday nowhere, wet as oceans somewhere going through the motions, me i'm losing me thursday nowhere, dry as deserts don't reach out, it only pressures me you're losing me there's somewhere north of north that we can't reach ships headed there just falter on the beach friday nowhere, gone already time moves slowly, sharply, shredding me you're losing me there's somewhere north of north, but we can't say some part of me believed you knew the way there's somewhere north of north where we can't go feathers block our vision, thick as snow
10.
Elijah 03:24
they say there's ways to go to any place you wanna get i've been a lot of places but i don't believe it yet elijah, can you hear me singing out the open door? there's a new world waiting out there, i don't need it anymore the prayer house on st. giles mocks the world with its repose babylon is collapsing and now everybody knows elijah, can you hear me, as i set a second place? there's a new world waiting out there, it will vanish, leave no trace angels over the house tonight, memories of home the one thing you can't learn from others is how to be alone elijah, can you hear me calling for my twin? there's an empty world within me and i'm never going in rain streams through the windows and falls lightly on the mess sacred in my bed beside me, formless, limitless elijah, can you hear me crying through the mortal din? there are endless world within you, take me up and let me in
11.
you can grow things in december if you remember you can grow things in july if you try you can grow things year round if you trust that they won't let you down let them grow you would do somebody some good if you could you could do somebody some good if you would if you give somebody a chance and they just let it fall through their hands let it go some questions are just gonna haunt you when they want to some questions run so deep that you can't sleep sometimes there's no lesson to learn it just sits in your chest and it burns let it go the young shoot asked the elder tree oh god what will become of me? the sun shone through the leaves' dense spread the tree thought for a while and said oh, there is a light in things
12.
Bop 04:26
saw you in the covered market in the morning when you're going out, sometimes i wish that you'd send me a warning cause the sight of you still leaves me tearing up and short of breath like a memory, like ecstasy, like lsd, like death so hey, are you going to the bop later this evening? oh i dunno, i've gotta go, i really was just leaving i've not been getting out much, tell the truth, i haven't dared but who knows, if the stars align, i guess i'll see you there lights shine out over holywell and flicker in the haze we all get to sing our number 'fore we shuffle off the stage i keep on coming back to you, you're the only one i miss if we could talk for just a second, away from all of this we could give it another go we could give it another chance there's a lot that i still don't know and they're gonna play one last dance we could give it another try we could give it another go there's just something in your eye there's so much that i still don't know we could give it another chance we could give it another try they're gonna play one last dance hey, there's no need to cry we could give it another go we could give it another chance there's a lot that i still don't know and they're gonna play one last dance

about

"the overall design is refreshing and bold. we think that it is a good scheme and deserves to succeed."
--oxford civic society report on 'the holywell numbers'

आत्मैव रिपुरात्मन:
--bhagavadgita 6.5

this album tells the stories of three people during one year in oxford.

songs 1-3, 12 are victoria
songs 4-6, 11 are frank
songs 7-10 are j

to learn more about them, you can read the story and look at the pictures that come with the download.

like angels in america, but without the angels or the america

credits

released February 14, 2021

sophie's dream is or has been nathan, eva, and julian.

nathan: vox, guitars, banjo, casio VL-5, casio CTK-551, toy piano, songwritering
eva: vox, bass
julian: drums, microkorg, vox, claps, sheet metal

these songs were written from 2018 to 2020 in oxford and cincinnati. they were recorded and mixed at the youth prevention center in cincinnati and the lodge in dayton, ky by john hoffman, and also by nathan at his apartment.
lauren did the drawings.
riley mastered the record.
av took the photos.
thanks to john curley for letting us use his rehearsal space and borrow his instruments.
this album is for friends across the pond: joana, marcus, pan, kim, josé, laura, basil, nik, james, kat, alex, christopher, ellen, hazel, sybilla, edward! i'm sorry it all got cut off like that, but as the bollywood stars say, "we are traveling the love lane, and down the road we will meet again"

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