Sorry Julia!

This is a guilt-ridden post about how if you tell a fantastic story often enough, you will wind up believing it to be true.



In the late 80s, one of my favourite singer-songwriters was a new artiste called Julia Fordham. She had a wonderful voice that would go deep and soulful one minute, and then impossibly high in a falsetto the next. Many of my friends in JC and university also adored her - mostly for her vocal range, but also for her beautiful, emotional, heartfelt, "I'm a woman of the 80s - I'm single, free and strong but terribly vulnerable at the same time so don't hurt me because I will really get hurt ok?" type songs.

Then, someone told me that she used to be a man called Julian Fordham who was a poor struggling singer for the longest time until he saved up enough money to go for a sex change. I totally believed it and delighted in shocking everyone with the news. Poor S.K. was so traumatised by it he stopped listening to her CDs the very next day. He felt terribly betrayed because he had believed all her womanly outpourings to have come from a (genuinely) feminine place. "No wonder her voice so deep!" we would all agree, relishing the scandal of it all.

More than 10 years later, I still believed the story. I listened to every CD and read every interview with a stupid sense of anticipation that one day, she would give some hint as to what happened in the past. In fact, when I bought a DVD of her concert last month, I scrutinised her on stage (I actually went up to the TV real close) to try and assess how successful her sex-change op was (very successful, I concluded).

So this morning, having watched the DVD again (on my new DVD home theatre system!!) I finally decided to Wikipedia her to see if anything had been written on this. And in the process, I found that she had given birth recently to a baby daughter and released an EP of songs on her new child. Refusing to give up so easily, I went to discreetly check the facts with my secretary in the afternoon.

"Er, F., can I ask you something?"
"Ya?"
"If a man has a sex change operation and becomes a woman, can she later have babies?"
"Um, no."
"Orh, ok..."

So I'm really sorry Julia, for maligning you for more than 10 years. We really loved your music and I still do actually. As penance, I am taking out all your old CDs to re-listen to them.

Woman of the 80s
Julia Fordham

I'm a woman of the 80s, I'm fit and I'm strong
There ain't no situation where I don't belong
Too late for flowers too soon for pins (too soon for pins)
But I know where I'm heading and I like where I've been

And I swear I never really ever really get that lonely on Sundays
Well maybe, just a little, but I'm never really ever really gonna let myself CALL YOU UP!
Cos I'm not allowed to miss you and I'm not allowed to ring you
I'm a woman of the 80s, no fractures, no flaws
But I miss you sometimes that's all

I'm a woman of the 80s, I'm single and I'm free
There ain't no complications between my lover and me
He's got my number and I've got his
And even though I might miss him, I like it like this

If you're a woman of the 80s you've got a set of rules to follow
If it's not on, it's not on and you never ever ever ever ever swallow your pride