Cyndi Lauper shares how girl power still rules as she preps farewell tour
Cyndi Lauper shares why she’s quitting while she’s ahead at 71 as she heads to Australia for her final concerts.
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“There’s no crying in rock’n’roll.” Cyndi Lauper said she will shed no tears from the stage as she completes her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun farewell tour this year.
The 71-year-old icon’s pop superpowers remain undiminished but Lauper said she wanted to quit while she’s still able to cavort around the stage and hit the high notes.
“I want to be in good voice and I want to be in good shape, and I don’t know what I’m going to be like in a few years,” she said from her New York home.
“I’m 71 right now. I feel strong and I can do this, you know?”
Lauper was made for her times. Her breakthrough with the She’s So Unusual record in 1983 coincided with the seismic shift wrought by the arrival of MTV and its power to create superstars via music video.
The young singer, songwriter and performer was brilliant on camera with her colourful punk aesthetic and girl power anthems including Time After Time, When You Were Mine and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. She rewrote problematic lyrics in the song she deemed misogynistic and it remains a rallying cry even now as women worldwide protest the erosion of their rights.
Lauper did in fact cry when she saw young women holding signs saying “Girls Just Wanna Have Fundamental Rights” during marches against the controversial overturning of reproductive rights in the US a few years ago.
She immediately set up a fund to support women’s groups fighting for reproductive rights and sells coloured wigs at her farewell shows to back campaigns around the world.
“We set up the Girls Just Wanna Have Fundamental Rights fund when I saw people at marches with those signs and thought ‘You got to listen to the people!’” Lauper says.
“When I was doing these records in the 80s people said I told I was making disposable music. I didn’t want to make disposable music, I wanted to make music that gives people strength, something they can hold on to.
“Because I used to hold on to songs when I was totally lost. I just keep singing the songs like a chant, and it comforted me.”
Finally, the American music industry is listening to the people with Lauper this year nominated for induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
She was nominated in 2023 but didn’t make the cut. There will be protests if they don’t induct her this year.
The She Bop pop queen is gracious about the snub a couple of years ago and seems quietly confident she will finally get her flowers this year.
“I think what’s important is that they are inducting many more women,” she said.
“As a woman who grew up in the business, I looked to the women who came before me like Wanda Jackson and Brenda Lee and Big Mama Thornton who had Hound Dog at No. 1 on the charts for weeks before Elvis did it.
“I realised that I stand on the shoulders of the people that came before me as the people who come after me stand on my shoulders. And I want them to be good, strong shoulders.”
Lauper has long brought younger female artists up with her. She booked Tones and I to open for her at a show in Los Angeles last year and has booked The Veronicas to play at her Australian gigs.
A voracious listener to all kind of music – she currently adores Chappell Roan – Lauper said the playlist before she comes on stage each night is comprised of only women singers.
There’s only one genre of music she doesn’t love but is forced to listen to daily because of her beloved pugs.
“I started listening to classical music in the mornings, but it’s not for me. It’s for the dogs, because they say that the dogs will be calm if they listen to classical music,” she said.
“And I have two little pugs and one of them, the smallest one, she’s a little feisty and she thinks she’s a pit bull.
“You know, people come over and they say, ‘Oh, what a cute dog.’ And I’m like, ‘Don’t touch them. They’re gremlins.’”
The Cyndi Lauper farewell tour opens at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena on April 2, with all tour dates and ticket details via https://www.tegdainty.com/tour/cyndilauper2025/
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