Sometimes I Dream Where All The Other People Dance

Charlotte Sometimes
The Cure (1981)

The new wave tribute to the 1969 Penelope Farmer children's novel of the same name was released 40 years ago today.  The hauntingly beautiful song uses lines directly from the book, which is a children's science fiction drama set in 1958.  It follows a 13 year old girl named Charlotte who starts at a new boarding school.  After falling asleep in the oldest bed at the school, she finds that she has woken up 40 years in the past as a girl named Claire who is living through the first World War.  In the months that follow, she sometimes wakes up as herself in her own time, and sometimes wakes up as Claire in 1918

On the 40th birthday of an incredible song that was inspired by a novel about a 40 year jump back into time, press play, close your eyes, and take your own trip to 40 years in the past with the voice of Robert Smith as your guide.

Lyrics:

All the faces

All the voices blur

Change to one face

Change to one voice

Prepare yourself for bed

The light seems bright

And glares on white walls

All the sounds of

Charlotte sometimes

Into the night with

Charlotte sometimes

Night after night she lay alone in bed

Her eyes so open to the dark

The streets all looked so strange

They seemed so far away

But Charlotte did not cry

The people seemed so close

Playing expressionless games

The people seemed so close

So many other names

Sometimes I'm dreaming

Where all the other people dance

Sometimes I'm dreaming

Charlotte sometimes

Sometimes I'm dreaming

Expressionless the trance

Sometimes I'm dreaming

So many different names

Sometimes I'm dreaming

The sounds all stay the same

Sometimes I'm dreaming

She hopes to open shadowed eyes

On a different world

Come to me scared princess

Charlotte sometimes

On that bleak track

See the sun is gone again

The tears were pouring down her face

She was crying and crying for a girl

Who died so many years before

Sometimes I dream

Where all the other people dance

Sometimes I dream

Charlotte sometimes

Sometimes I dream

The sounds all stay the same

Sometimes I'm dreaming

There are so many different names

Sometimes I dream

Sometimes I dream

Charlotte sometimes crying for herself

Charlotte sometimes dreams a wall around herself

But it's always with love

With so much love it looks like

Everything else

Of Charlotte sometimes

So far away

Glass sealed and pretty

Charlotte sometimes