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i don​’​t know who needs to hear this​.​.​.

by Tomberlin

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    LP PACKAGING NOTES:
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    Includes unlimited streaming of i don’t know who needs to hear this... via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of i don’t know who needs to hear this... via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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      $13 USD or more 

     

  • Cassette + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of i don’t know who needs to hear this... via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 1 day
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      $11 USD or more 

     

  • TAP LP + MP3
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    LP PACKAGING NOTES:
    - Saddle Creek Exclusive blue and green half and half vinyl
    - Limited Edition of 400 (Limit 2 per customer)
    - Vinyl pressed at GZ
    - Includes download card

    Includes unlimited streaming of i don’t know who needs to hear this... via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • idkwntht Shirt
    T-Shirt/Shirt

    Saddle Creek exclusive Tomberlin Comfort Colors T-shirt featuring lyrics from the song "idkwntht."

    Manufactured by Comfort Colors
    100% ring spun cotton
    Soft-washed garment-dyed fabric
    Pre-shrunk

    Measurements (across chest):
    SM: 17 1/2"
    ME: 19 1/2"
    LG: 21 1/4"
    XL: 23"
    XXL: 25"

    Sold Out

1.
easy 05:41
not one word a keepsake don’t wanna hold the key the stories that i told you sweet words you spoke to me you hoped i’d stay here in the city you asked me not to leave you alone so i listened till you forgot your misery you tell me that i’m easy you say i seem “so free” but i’m frightened to make you feel like others have made me i always keep it quiet i’ll sit up on the shelf no real desire spoken and i deny myself cause i am so easy cause i’m always easy didn’t hear from you this weekend and i know what that means you don’t know how you feel about her but i know it hurts me and when you say you saw her i ask you how she’s been and you don’t wanna talk about it and i wanna let you in cause i am so easy cause i’m always easy is my love worth something? cause it don’t feel so free always loving everyone in love i expect nothing and i hate to sing it like this but that's what they tell me i hope that i can fix it i can’t forever be the one who’s always easy why am i always easy don’t wanna be so easy stop telling me i’m easy
2.
woke up and read the news start my day crying over things you prayed would break our hearts when my sisters and i were young you said “we’re trying to learn to consider others more important than ourselves” well i’m not the one yelling but you say i’m too emotional walk away kicking myself should i save my tears for somebody else watching your sermon looking for an apology i’ve sat through so many and they always use to panic me face the pews i need to leave go sit in the balcony sync my breathing with the ac pretend i’m in the nosebleed seats well i guess i’ve had enough you preach peace and patience but you don’t seem to have your own and i’m tired of calling your bluff and i know i’ve said it more than just once i know i’m not jesus but jesus i’m trying to be enough wrote you a letter trying hard to describe myself you never seemed to see me you always saw someone else that i was trying to be to get you to love me you said when i was a kid i was always running away from a hug or some kind of loving and hey maybe you were right and hey maybe i still might come on you don’t have to be so tough if you’ll try to listen then i’ll try to call you up and i’ll let you call my bluff and i know i’ve said it more than just once i know i’m not jesus but jesus i’m trying to be enough
3.
tap 04:31
tap the heart until i hate myself hit the square and rearrange myself i don’t like it what it does to me never makes me want to laugh or sing do you think about the trees in the breeze how they swing and scream and talk and breathe i wish i was so tall and green swing my branches only sing for me talk to strangers like we already met even though it hasn’t happened yet will i be found if i’m never met did the chicken come before the egg i love the people playing songs in the park guitar for babies instead of people in the bars do you think they know how good they are i think they do they got kids singing like larks they go stopped watching movies that make me feel and you said trash tv is the best meal and i reply well none of it’s real you said i know and i think that’s ideal but sometimes don’t you wanna hit to the heart he said he only wondered who would play his part always wondering about my health always wondering if i’ll go to hell should take some vitamins i don’t know what to take and i should sleep more but i’m always wide awake i’m not a tree i’m in a forest of buildings i’m not a singer i’m just someone who’s guilty remind me that i don’t have to be anything remind me that i don’t have to be anything i look for signs on the faces of the buildings i look for signs on your face of us ending
4.
memory 04:32
trusted in the invisible when i was young practiced twenty years left me undone but i’ve tasted and i’ve seen you and still trust won’t come kept your voicemail in my pocket afraid one day it’d stop playing and i’d never hear your voice again but i play it like a song and when it stops i turn it back on possessed me from the start locked me in both your arms and i’d never ask to leave and i never had the need keep me keep me memory is a silent killer but i’d use my last night to think of you to think of you
5.
unsaid 04:46
left my home and a best friend the places i could hide for a city of six lane highways and lots of traffic lights but i’m trying to grow roots here keep my feet on the ground but sirens swim and circle the shore that i have found well it’s only been a few months and i can’t tell the difference was i happy in the quiet? all the open handed distance from the people and their parties where no one really talks distracting from the thought of you and all those late night walks cause if i don’t call you up then i don’t have to feel down and if i don’t say i miss you then you never have to be around if i don’t say i love you then you don’t have to love me see how simple the unsaid keeps things? and lucy gave me a reading king of cups and queen of wands and in the middle a perfect picture of everything i want and i laugh cause it makes sense but something leaves me feeling wrong i know you’re not a perfect picture but my heart it won’t shut off cause if i don’t call you up then i don’t have to feel down and if i don’t say i miss you then you never have to be around if i don’t say i love you then you don’t have to love me see how simple the unsaid
6.
sunstruck 05:01
i’m not tired i’m just wired for late nights staying up talking till the sun gets stuck back up in the sky reminding me i’m still alive i’d been looking for hope in a song or a run or a deep breath a punch or a two step beat that could carry me away from absurdity you’d been smoking lots and living in your head cause at least you’d know where you last left it i’m left waiting for you to wake up but you’re still dreaming of your next cup but it’s never quite enough you pour it out but nothing will come from an ever flowing cup when you’re too fucked to fill it back up left you alone or i did my best not to water a garden that didn’t want to live there were signs of life but it wasn’t my land and i had my own to tend and i’d forgotten it well i played it back in my head again and again not to do any harm just to try and understand couldn’t find a path that made much sense just some half finished thoughts and a couple new plants i went looking for myself by myself and it wasn’t close to easy but it sure did help and my heart kept keeping time wondering where you were and what was on your mind but it’s never quite enough i can think it and write it but it’s hard speaking up i don’t mind the sweet and wasted time the taste of your lips and your smirk when you lie but i try not to get in the way and i try so hard i evaporate a year passes and some seeds take root your garden is growing and mine’s growing too and the works not always fun but it’s better than staring at the weeds and the mud we left behind some pain to get to the magic thing
7.
collect caller don’t even bother see you’re running around town befriending anyone who will spill an idea or a bag of drugs collect caller go stack your followers networking at every show could build the tower of babel as you babble on collect caller i know it’s harder to be in a room feeling like a ghost but it might be better than everyone knowing collect caller don’t say you’re a baller you’re a white boy living on your daddy’s dime no hate i know these are very rough times collect caller go get your dollar disappearing from the table before the bill is paid but at least i got out before you got my name collect caller your worlds getting smaller take two steps forward as she takes one back playing so dumb but i know it ain’t that collect caller collect caller collect caller collect caller
8.
stoned 04:45
after the party i walked home alone alone talked to god like i believe him but i don’t felt so lonely made me want to sink not float so i crushed the feeling with a smoke so stoned so stoned i thought of you and what you chose it made me cry couldn’t get my breathing right all night all night i still remember every word you spoke to me you paid for lies to be made truth does that fuck with you? i had forgiveness in my heart you knew you knew after the party i walked home alone
9.
what’s the point of this if i know how it ends you said i got the spark well baby are you the flint? and don’t you dare me to cause you know that i will and don’t you say those words that ain’t part of our deal walk five miles from my door just to give you some more do you just talk to me when you’re lonely and bored and don’t you act like that when you know what i feel and don’t you tell me to stay cause you know that i will but you get so close i almost don’t bite my lip happy accident and i wanna die when you say don’t cry i won’t quit happy accident always measure my time by the way you spend mine i wanna burn it all down could i borrow a light? and don’t you dare me to i could leave in the night and don’t you dare me to cause you know i could fly but you get so close i almost don’t bite your lip happy accident and i wanna die when you say don’t cry i won’t quit i’m no accident what’s the point of this i don’t know how it ends
10.
possessed 01:51
won’t you cover my eyes won’t you cover my eyes i don’t know who to be i don’t know what to sing somethings always possessed me won’t you please sit with me as i figure it out figure it out i have nothing i have nothing but a head full of doubt a head full of doubt
11.
idkwntht 04:45
i don’t know who needs to hear this sometimes it's good to sing your feelings and every time i open my mouth hope something halfway helpful falls out and on the phone i said it clear how could i ask you dear to hold the feelings i don’t want to when i distract and barely try to? but here is one thing i am learning everyone’s heart burns for something and really what i wanted to be was everything you weren’t for me this song is simple but it ain’t easy to sing it like it is believe me these days we learn to hold ourselves light your candle cast your spell sing it like it is a prayer sing it like no one else is there sing it like no one can hear you sing whatever makes it feel new i don’t know who needs to hear this sometimes it's good to sing your feelings especially when you don’t know the next line or how it goes i don’t know who needs to hear this sometimes it's good to sing your feelings i don’t know who needs to hear this i don’t know who needs to hear this i don’t know who needs to hear this i don’t know who needs to hear this

about

Tomberlin is Sarah Beth Tomberlin, a pastor’s kid born in Florida, raised in rural Illinois. She wrote the majority of her debut, At Weddings (2018), while living at home. For a while after leaving home and church, she lived in Louisville, Kentucky. She worked a day job and kept writing songs. She posted some of these songs to Bandcamp, which led to her signing a record deal with Saddle Creek. It all happened fast: Less than a year after her first live show, she performed on Jimmy Kimmel and she ended up moving to L.A. which is where she wrote Projections (2020), her EP followup to At Weddings.

During the pandemic, Sarah Beth was all over the place, physically and mentally. Louisville. Los Angeles. Back home in Illinois for a bit. Brooklyn, where she’s now settled, she says. Brooklyn is also where her new album i don’t know who needs to hear this… was recorded, at Figure 8 studios over the course of two weeks, with producer and engineer Phil Weinrobe (who played a variety of instruments on the collection), and later mastered by Josh Bonati, also in Brooklyn.

“The theme of the record,” she explains, “is to examine, hold space, make an altar for the feelings.” Hold space: Tomberlin’s songs do it literally, making it heard space. Her full-length debut, At Weddings, was widely praised for the sparsity and delicacy of its instrumentation, especially in contrast with the emotional heft of her lyrics.

Here, the space feels larger and holier, built to echo. Pedal steel. Old acoustic guitars, freshly plucked. A drifting synthesizer. Chill, brushy percussion. Ambient, expansive clarinet and saxophone. Aleatory piano trills, a lot of piddling with the occasional splash. The looseness and wideness of the arrangements conveys a tender regard for their parts, as though each arpeggio, loop, scratch is a found shell or feather in the hand. Then there is the instrument of her voice, which has the endearing quality of being perfectly tuned but reluctantly played. “I’m not a singer,” she sings on “idkwntht.” “I’m just someone who’s guilty.”

credits

released April 29, 2022

Producer: Philip Weinrobe, Sarah Beth Tomberlin
Mixer: Philip Weinrobe
Recording Engineer: Philip Weinrobe
Mastering Engineer: Josh Bonati @ Bonati Mastering

Performers
sarah beth tomberlin: vocals, acoustic guitar
felix walworth: bass, guitar, piano, drums, vocals
philip weinrobe: bass, guitar, synths, piano
david cieri: piano
shahzad ismaily: moog rogue, bass, guitar, percussion
stuart bogie: woodwinds
doug wieselman: woodwinds
aaron roche: guitar, vocals
cass mccombs: guitar
jonnie baker: moog, guitar
kenny wollesen: percussion
john rossiter: guitar
jack mcloughlin: pedal steel
gyða valtýsdóttir: cello

2022 Saddle Creek

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Tomberlin Brooklyn, New York

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