Since the release of Cyndi Lauper’s song “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” karaoke bars have not been the same. Over the weekend, festivalgoers attending Glastonbury 2024 had the chance to experience to sing it live alongside Lauper.
The record is an undeniable smash, and for a plethora of reasons. But according to Lauper, the first version of the hit song sucked because it dismissed women’s (the intended audience) social and political needs.
Yesterday (June 29) during an appearance on BBC Woman’s Hour, Lauper discussed the origin of the track with host Anita Rani and how she made the “necessary adjustments” to get it up to code for her.
“It was written by a man for a man,” she said. “And one, it’s not the same point of view. Two, I did try and sing it like [the songwriter] and it sucked, because you can’t try and sing it like Robert Hazard. I didn’t sound good, and the whole song didn’t sound good. You might as well just listen to his version.”
Lauper revealed she did adjust the lyric “Oh daddy dear, we are the fortunate ones” to “Oh mama dear, we are not the fortunate ones” in order to make it into an anthem from the women’s perspective.
Earlier in the conversation, Lauper talked about why the record’s meaning hit home for her.
“When They said to me: ‘Think of what it could be, it could be an anthem,’ you know who they were talking to,” she said. “I burnt my training bra at the first women’s demonstration at the Alice in Wonderland statue. I was there. And I burnt it not just for me, but for my mother and grandmother. The women whose shoulders I stand on. So that’s who they were talking to. They may not have realized that was who they were talking to, but that’s who they were talking to.”
For nostalgia’s sake, listen to “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” below.