Born 22 June: Cyndi Lauper, the True Colours of an unruly girl

Born in New York in 1953, the American singer turns 72 today and, like Springsteen, continues her fight against President Trump whom she accuses of being a threat to freedom.

Since 1983, she has certainly released eleven albums, but it's not unfair to say that she now lives on past glories. Between 1983 and 1986, she certainly rivalled all other female singers — even Madonna! She managed to get four songs from the album She’s So Unusual into the top four places of the Billboard charts: Girls Just Want To Have Fun, Time After Time, All Through The Night, and She Bop. It was the first time a female artist had achieved such a feat. Today, the music industry has taken on an entirely new face since the advent of streaming and the remarkable success of Taylor Swift, the new queen of every chart!

With her distinctive, high-pitched voice (irritating to some, despite its four octave range), her perpetual teenage antics, her eccentric wardrobe and endlessly vivid hairstyles, she regularly offers us new versions of her biggest hits like Time After Time, and sometimes questionable covers like What’s Going On (Marvin Gaye) or more convincing ones like

Iko Iko, the New Orleans classic.

But Cyndi Lauper also has other achievements to her name, such as writing the Kinki Boots musical and an excellent album called Memphis Blues in 2010, featuring legends of the genre from harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite to B.B. King, as well as Allen Toussaint and Ann Peebles.

Not one to leave anyone else to write her story, in 2012, Cyndi Lauper penned her own memoirs with humour. She continues to tirelessly remind us that Girls Just Want To Have Fun was, above all, a feminist anthem. A champion of LGBTQIA+ rights, she notably wrote Above The Clouds as a tribute to Matthew Shepard, a young gay man beaten to death in Wyoming in 1998.

Following on from Let The Canary Sing, the documentary dedicated to her in May 2024, the singer has announced she will go on tour one last time to thank her fans while she still has the energy. Called the Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour, this series of concerts will end at the legendary Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on 30 August.

Upcoming concerts:

20 July: Beach Theater – Wantagh (USA)

21 July: TD Pavilion – Philadelphia (USA)

13 August: Fiedler’s Green – Greenwood Village (USA)

30 August – Hollywood Bowl – Los Angeles (USA)

(MH with Stéphane Soupart – Photo: © Etienne Tordoir)

Photo: Cyndi Lauper on stage at Forest-National in Brussels on 22 February 1987 during the only concert she ever gave in Belgium