A Tape for Julia

A Tape for Julia

I found the songs my father played for me in the womb.

JULIA CUMMING

MAY 15

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Side A

1. 3 Is a Magic Number — Schoolhouse Rock
2. Figure 8 (Multiplication Rock) — Schoolhouse Rock
3. Don’t Cry, Mother Dear — (Amahl and the Night Visitors)
4. The World Is a Circle — (from Lost Horizons)
5. Guantanamera — Celia Cruz
6. Julia — The Beatles
7. A Dream Goes On Forever — Todd Rundgren
8. I’ll Never Fall in Love Again — (from Promises, Promises)
9. When a Man Needs a Woman — (likely Beach Boys version noted)
10. Christmas — Pete Townshend
11. The Wind — Cat Stevens
12. Meant for You / Good Vibrations — Beach Boys
13. Never My Love — The Association
14. There She Goes — The La’s
15. Me and My Arrow — Harry Nilsson
16. Come On Come On — Cheap Trick
17. Baby Blue — Badfinger

Side B

1. Rock Your Baby — George McCrae
2. Ooh Child — Five Stairsteps
3. Pure Imagination — (from Willy Wonka / Gene Wilder)
4. Till the Morning Comes — (likely Neil Young / similar note)
5. Only Love Can Break Your Heart — Neil Young
6. Pink Thing — XTC
7. Birdhouse in Your Soul — They Might Be Giants
8. Miracle of Grace — (likely Bite the Wax Godhead?)
9. I Need Love — Sam Phillips
10. Sunday Girl (French version) — Blondie
11. Foolish Little Girl — The Shirelles
12. Ile Aye — (Che… likely Cheikh Lô or similar)
13. Mele of My Tutu E — (Pahinui Bros.)
14. Stay Up Late — Talking Heads
15. Tea for the Tillerman — Cat Stevens
16. Sleepwalk — Jeff Beck

A Tape for Julie (soon to be Julia)

Before I had a body, I had this tape.

Recently, while cleaning out his house, my dad found a tape he created for me to listen to in the womb. He would put headphones on my mother’s stomach and hope that I would absorb some of the greatness in those songs. I don’t remember hearing it, of course, but I think that’s irrelevant. It’s far more wonderful to imagine that this music bypassed memory and went straight into my subconscious, or some deep place in my heart I will never know but always feel.

Looking at the tracklist now, there’s a huge range, which feels important. The Beach Boys sit next to Celia Cruz. Todd Rundgren is on the bench with Schoolhouse Rock. “Pure Imagination” next to “Only Love Can Break Your Heart.” It isn’t curated by genre or identity. It’s love.

It’s funny trying to remember the first time I consciously heard these songs. Can I recall some kind of psychedelic déjà vu? Or was it more subtle, like I was already at home, familiar and comfortable in the melodies? I wonder if, before I ever picked up an instrument, before I ever tried to write a song or figure out who I was supposed to be, I had already absorbed the idea that music was primal, almost pre-verbal. That joy, heartbreak, humor, innocence, and depth could all exist inside the experience of sound.

And I wonder now, after the release of my debut solo album, how much of what I’ve made is actually new, and how much of it is just a remembering of something that’s always been there.

Tour continues…

MAY 16, 2026 – London Calling

Amsterdam, North Holland

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MAY 18, 2026 – Mikropol

Berlin, Germany

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MAY 20, 2026 – L’Archipel

Paris, France

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