Cyndi Lauper has enjoyed more than four decades as a performing artist — and she’s working as hard as ever. Lauper is currently engaged in her 24-city Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell tour — which includes her first time headlining Madison Square Garden, a sold-out show this Wednesday, Oct. 30 — as well as an upcoming stop at Target Center in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Dec. 4.

And if that’s not enough, Lauper has also been supporting the release of the feature-length documentary about her life and career, Let The Canary Sing, which is streaming now on Paramount+.

Despite her busy schedule, Lauper took time to check in with The Current’s Zach McCormick to talk about all her latest projects, including her work in social justice, and to reflect on one of her favorite people in music: Prince.

Listen to the interview using the audio player above, and read a transcript of the interview below.

Interview Transcript

Zach McCormick: I am joined by the legend, Cyndi Lauper, joining The Current today to talk about her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour, coming to the Target Center on Wednesday, December 4. Her new documentary, Let the Canary Sing, is streaming now on Paramount+. Cindy, thank you so much for joining us here on The Current.

Related Links:

• Tour: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour (official site)
• Documentary: "Let The Canary Sing" (Paramount+ site)

Cyndi Lauper: Oh, thank you so much. How you doing, Zach?

Zach McCormick: Not too bad. Thanks so much for chatting with me this afternoon. You are gearing up for your first extended run of tour dates in over a decade. How do you approach preparing your mind and your body for multiple months' worth of shows in a row?

Cyndi Lauper: It's a different kind of tour, this tour. It's a bucket list, and that's why it's my last one, because I've been working on these Broadway musicals. It really takes so much, so I didn't have time for me, you know? Then I realized, you know, time's a-wasting. And then the documentary came out, and I figured, you know, why not? This tour is different, because it's really an artists' collective, and I have so many wonderful artists like Yayoi Kusama, who I get to collaborate with on this tour for the visuals, and Daniel Wurtzel, and of course, my special guest is Gayle, who, not for nothing, how many times did you sing to yourself, "A, B, C, D, E, F, U," right?

Zach McCormick: Yeah, absolutely.

Cyndi Lauper: I'm excited, because the tour has incredible visuals, but also to have this incredible support artist to open for me is a gift, because I'm a fan.

Zach McCormick: She's got a little bit of that rock edge like you brought, too. I love that.

Cyndi Lauper: I remember when I was first coming out, and I wanted to have a WWR tour, "Women Who Rock," and I was told, "No, you can't, because women won't sell." Now look at what's going on, right? So it's kind of great. You should never lose faith in your vision sometimes. It will always happen, it just may not happen when you think it's going to happen. And so I'm excited to be able to do this, to collaborate with the artists that I'm collaborating with visually. I have a wonderful creative director, Brian Burke, who worked 12 years with Cirque du Soleil, and has done many tours. But for me, this is special because I always loved that performance art thing, and I was able, with him, to really just take the ideas and make them actually happen in real life. And I have these wonderful collaborators with the costumes: you know, Christian Siriano, who is a wonderful designer; and Jeffrey Mack, also wonderful creative designer; and my stylist, who is wonderful, Nikki Fontanella — a good Italian girl, come on! — and we're doing these wonderful creative visuals together. And for me, it's quite extraordinary. And of course, it's a bucket list. How many times in your life do you really do this?

Zach McCormick: Yeah!

Cyndi Lauper: Right? I just love the spirit of that. You know, that's the kind of spirit that excites me. So when I saw this film, Laurel Canyon, and I saw what a wonderful indie film that was, I looked at who did it, it was Alison Ellwood. And then when I was approached and they said, "Well, you should...!" and I said, "Well, if we're going to do that, why don't we work with this wonderful filmmaker, Alison Ellwood?" And in the end, I got to work with my pick, Alison Ellwood, because if anybody was going to tell my story, I'd rather put it in the hands of an independent who is a maverick, thinks outside the box and is a wonderful editor, too.

Zach McCormick: Absolutely, yeah. You were just mentioning that kind of independent connection to that new documentary, Let The Canary Sing. It premiered here in the Twin Cities last fall as part of an independent film festival that we have here called Sound Unseen that's kind of a film and music festival. And one of the things that I think the movie did such a great job of was highlighting your work as an activist and a philanthropist as well. Like, people know of you as this incredible hit maker, but you also have always been so committed to the causes that motivate you. So what causes have been motivating and inspiring you lately in the social-justice side of your career?

Cyndi Lauper: I've been working with two other people on the True Colors United organization, and it is 15 years old, and it's able to stand on its own and to still do good work. And you know, whenever they need me, I'll go. But in 2016, at the Great Woman's March that was all around the world, I saw these young women with signs that said, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fundamental Rights." And that's when I felt like, you know what? And with the whole thing, with SCOTUS and the whole hypocrisy of, "Oh, yeah, we believe in the war. We won't let our religious beliefs stand in the way of war because separation of church and state." That was a lie, right? Oh, big surprise. Big surprise. So after that, I said, "OK, we're not sitting here anymore." I called up the two people that I started the True Colors Fund with, Lisa Barbaris and Gregory Lewis, and I said, "Listen, why don't we do something? Let's create another fund to help women access safe and legal abortion, and let's work on getting women full autonomy over their own bodies." You know, which is what autonomy is, which is what any man has, which is what you have. And I don't get a reduction in my taxes for being a second-class citizen. I pay the same taxes as everybody else, and trust me, I pay a lot, it's ridiculous that we don't have equal rights for everyone.

And I think it's time that women stand together and stop voting with their husbands, with this, with that, and f****** stand up for yourself. You want to think about money? It's your money, too. And as a young girl, I got to see what happens to a single mother when she has to support her family and she's a second-class citizen. I want every young woman to see herself and know that she, too, is entitled to a joyful existence on this planet. My sister is part of the LGBTQ community. I'm friend and family member. Friends and families don't stand by while their friends and family are discriminated against and treated badly and disenfranchised. You don't just stand by quietly. You stand up, you become active, you raise your voice, you vote.

Zach McCormick: Absolutely.

Cyndi Lauper: I've been coming to Minneapolis all my life, and I was there when Prince was there. I miss him. I mean, did you name a street after him? Because you should.

Zach McCormick: There's definitely plenty of stuff around town that's got his name and his face all over it, too, so I'll be excited for you to be able to see some of it when you're in town. You famously covered Prince on She's So Unusual. I've read some really touching quotes that you've given in his memory in recent years as well. Do you remember what first drew you to that song, "When You Were Mine," and what type of connection did you have with Prince, professionally or personally, in the years of your career?

Cyndi Lauper: Well, when I first heard that song as a writer, and what he was talking about in the song wasn't just provocative, but it voiced a lifestyle that needed some light on it anyway, and it also was an interesting, really well-written song. And it was an opportunity to create and include the song in our collective that we were doing for She's So Unusual; we were creating a sound, and the sound was modern music. And the thing about Prince, he opened for the Rolling Stones, and the people did not understand how brilliant this young man was, but eventually they did, and his sense of visuals and his artistic palette was something that I thought was quite extraordinary. But also as a writer, as a very descriptive visual writer, that's what brought me close to that material in that song. I thought, "Yeah, let's do this." And that was before the whole Purple Rain thing and everything. And Minneapolis will always, to me, be a rock and roll town because of him.

And isn't Walz from Minneapolis? 

Zach McCormick: Tim Walz? Yeah, yeah. He's from Minnesota. He was our governor before becoming the VP pick.

Cyndi Lauper: He's pretty fierce!

Zach McCormick: Absolutely, he's got that energy, that kind of Upper Midwest dad energy to him.

Cyndi Lauper: Yeah, but he was also a teacher.

Zach McCormick: Very true.

Cyndi Lauper: I always get nervous when people want to ban books, because I feel like they want to put braces on everybody's brains, and I don't want to live with braces on my brains. I want to learn. And books are important, they help you grow and learn. Anyway, he was a teacher, and that's what makes him so, so great to me. And a coach. Yeah, you're lucky that you had a governor like that.

Zach McCormick: I was just going to ask you just a real quick question about your songwriting choices. You have so much, you have this incredibly deep songbook, all these different songs that you've written over the years, four decades' worth of songwriting, and songs that you've also shared with the world as a skillful interpreter of music. How do you go about narrowing down this incredible, decades-long career's worth of songs into a songbook for your final tour? And does the fact that it's a farewell tour kind of make it harder to make those choices for those songs that you're going to be performing too?

Cyndi Lauper: No, it does. I went and looked at the streaming services to find out what songs people were listening to or wanted to hear. And so, you know, I had too many songs, and I still might, I don't know, you know? Because once you start to talk — but how can you just go through a show and not talk to anybody? That's crazy. What will I do with my "a guy walks into a bar" jokes, right? For me, I really took that very seriously. There are a few songs that I can switch up with the visuals as we go, just so I can kind of get them all in, you know what I'm saying? But the visuals are very strong, so it kind of has to be similar. It's important for me to do that. I tried to fit everything in. I didn't get a blues song in there. I don't know. I'll have to ask because, you know, I have to go rehearse. I'm going to a place to rehearse everything. So that's when I'll really know what I can switch up so that I can include everything, all the different albums.

I'm excited to be able to do this, because it really is performance art, and that's what we do anyway. You know, Prince was a great visual artist. And at that time, all of those people coming out with the videos and singing, they were performance artists. We were performance artists, because you were never going to just listen to music anymore; you were going to see it. And so now, when I put together the tour, I wanted it to be visual, and since it's the last thing, I wanted it to be art and music, and so that's what it is. And I get to do this on a large scale. No more flashlights!

Zach McCormick: Absolutely. Cyndi Lauper, thank you so much. I know that people are going to have an absolute treat when this tour rolls through Target Center on Wednesday, December 4, the Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell tour. Cyndi Lauper's documentary, Let The Canary Sing, streaming now on Paramount+. Cyndi, thank you so much for your time. Can't wait to see the show.

Cyndi Lauper: Thank you. Ciao!

Zach McCormick: Take care. Bye.

Credits

Guest – Cyndi Lauper
Host – Zach McCormick
Producers – Derrick Stevens, Nilufer Arsala
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor

External Link

Cyndi Lauper – official site