Kinky Boots, the hit Broadway musical has arrived in Australia and joining the star-studded premiere is none other than the show’s award-winning composer – Cyndi Lauper.
When the album She’s So Unusual, was released in 1983 it caught the eyes of a generation of teenagers, critics and even parents. Based in new wave and synth pop, it spawned six singles and won two Grammys, including Best New Artist – and the world was introduced to Cyndi Lauper.
One can’t help but be impressed with Lauper’s career. From her signature song Girls Just Want To Have Fun, to the LGBTI charity work, film and TV appearances to multiple awards, it’s been one flourishing and expanding career. She can also tick the boxes marked Grammy, Emmy and Tony, the latter being for Kinky Boots, her successful new musical opening in Melbourne this month.
In fact, in present-day 2016 the brightly-haired pop star with the quirky New York accent remains every bit as vivacious and fun-loving as when she kicked up her heels and snake-danced with friends in that iconic music video, some thirty years ago. It is such an iconic, infectious and joyful Eighties anthem that still resonates to this day.
“Oh yeah,” says Lauper in that familiar accent. “You know, it’s very important to be able to communicate with people, and that song was supposed to be very joyful. It was a song about entitlement, in a way, for young women and women of all ages. It’s about having a joyful experience in life.”
But the song wasn’t originally meant to sound the way it did. Having first been written by the late musician Robert Hazard, Lauper changed the lyrics, giving her breakthrough song a different meaning and edge. Was that a risky move for a new female artist of the Eighties?
“No, they wanted me to do that,” she says. “It was written by a man and a man’s not going to have a woman’s perspective. No way. That would be a little weird. So they asked me to think of what it could mean, and I just edited the stuff that wasn’t right. We were actually making a ‘sound’. The whole She’s So Unusual album had a very particular sound, and it became almost like a little band. We’d always work on that sound thing, and it all became a part of the album.”
That sound certainly proved successful, as did Lauper’s follow up work including True Colors (1986), Hat Full of Stars (1993), Shine (2004) and her recent country-inspired album Detour. Now the Kinky Boots soundtrack adds another bright feather to her always colourful cap. Apart from the accolades the show has received, it seems that one of the best rewards for Lauper, is working with people she has long admired, including famed American actor/playwright Harvey Fierstein (Torch Song Trilogy).
“Harvey called and asked me if I wanted to write a show for him, and I said absolutely, because he is one of the greatest storytellers in musicals. I’ve always been a fan of his, so I said yes, and I didn’t care what it was. Then he said (breaking into a raspy voice), “Would you mind looking at the movie?” But, when I worked with him I also got to work with another friend of mine, Jerry Mitchell, who was the choreographer on Hey Now, Girls Just Want To Have Fun. So, I got to work with both of them and it was quite fun.”
Those who have seen Kinky Boots, both stage and screen versions, would well know the feel-good element akin to Billy Elliot, The Full Monty or Bend It Like Beckham, all having leapt from screen to stage. For Kinky Boots the music is infectiously rousing while emotionally poignant. Like any great musical, it is one that can raise a smile to the grumpiest of patrons, as Lauper likes to points out.
“Kinky Boots makes people happy. We’d sometimes go to the theatre, sit in the audience and watch the people. This one time a guy came in and he was in a real pissy mood. He was not happy. He really looked like he’d had a hard day at the office. You know? So, he’s sitting there and the first song goes by, then the second song, and I’m thinking, oh boy, this ain’t going well. Right? Then it gets to The History of Wrong Guys song and all of a sudden he starts to chuckle a little, then he starts laughing. I thought to myself, oh my god, we got em! We got em! I realised that watching this guy is one of the big reasons why I wanted to have variety in the music.”
The variety component may very well be the reason Kinky Boots unseated The Book of Mormon as the highest charting Broadway cast recording in history, not to mention winning six Tony Awards. There is indeed a wide variation of styles within the Kinky Boots numbers. From pop to new wave and funk to tango, like the show’s theme it is musically diverse, and the song Raise You kind of says it all. Then there is the upbeat number Sex is in the Heel! Ouch!
“I got to write a lot of different styles,” she says.
“I asked Harvey what are the rules, are you allowed to do this, and allowed to do that? He said there are no rules. But I always had rules shoved down my throat. I guess I was trained my whole life for ‘Where’s the hook?’ So the hooks were very important to me. They always used to say to me “Oh you can’t sing like that, you’re Cyndi Lauper, you have to sing like this.” And I’d be like “Oh, come on!” So, I decided that Kinky Boots was just the greatest thing. I was excited to do it and Harvey guided me though.”
Considering her successful discography, it’s of no surprise that Lauper’s songs have often formed part of movie soundtracks (Girls Just Want To Have Fun got its own titled film) not to mention the many covers by other artists. Time After Time, which many critics consider to be her greatest song, has been covered at least a hundred times. It was even included in the classic Baz Luhrmann film Strictly Ballroom. Did Cyndi approve?
“I liked the idea of it, yeah,” she says. “I thought they could have done a better job of it, but I still thought it was good for what it was doing. I’m fine with it.”
The film Never Been Kissed also featured her song She Bop, another infectious song that Generation X grew up dancing to, but had no idea it was actually about masturbation.
“That’s how it was supposed to be,” says Lauper chuckling. “Nobody was supposed to know except the adults. We didn’t want the kids to know, but I thought it was funny that the adults heard it one way, and the kids heard it another.”
Even so, the song joined the likes of Prince, Madonna and ACDC in forming the ‘Filthy Fifteen’ list in America, something that led to the creation of the Parental Advisory Sticker. But hey, what better way to promote a record to teenagers!
But unlike many artists from the Eighties, Lauper has endeared, if not gained momentum to her career. Never short of surprises, in 2011 she surprised and consoled a crowd of stranded passengers at Buenos Aires Airport, with an impromptu rendition of Girls Just Want To Have Fun, over the airport PA system.
“That happened, and that’s all I can tell ya!” she says laughing.
“But I’m glad I got up and sang, because my nightmare would have been getting ripped up by all those footballers. I just saw an opportunity and it was so nutty and funny and everyone was laughing, so I said to my friend make sure you get this down on the phone. I didn’t quite know how to do it myself, so I was asking the people to teach me how to film it. I said if I tell people, nobody would believe it, and of course it was filmed by everyone! I was with Nicky my stylist, and we had just come off a cuckoo experience in Japan. Well it wasn’t just cuckoo, it was tragic. You know with the whole 311 tsunami that they had? So we had landed in a different place and we looked at each other and thought this is another crazy experience. We didn’t know what the hell was going on., but hey you know, you wouldn’t believe it if you were told it.”
In an age of social media, where candid celebrity performances and flash mobs have become a new thing, Lauper was surprised to learn of this year’s Kate Bush tribute, the Most Wuthering Heights Day, celebrated around the world.
“Wow! That sounds amazing,” she says. I so love that song! It’s awesome!”
But what if there were a Girls Just Want To Have Fun global celebration day? It’s a vision in the making with hundreds of drag queens, fifty-something women and cool Gen Y’ers complete with teased auburn wigs, black hats and telephone receivers in hand.
Cyndi begins to laugh again. “Knock yourself out, and go have fun. But what they should do is put one together for Kinky Boots,” as she emphasis the show’s trademark phrase RED!”
Indeed! The show’s lead character Lola, in her red Kinky Boots, is somewhat a diva herself, and we know all-to-well how gay men love their divas. The big question is, who are Cyndi Lauper’s divas? Is there an influence to her style?
“Oh come on, are you kidding me? Many! First of all, one of my biggest was Sylvester. Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! I thought he was a really great guy. He and the Two Tons of Fun? Come on! And then there’s Patti LaBelle and I guess Aretha Franklin, Joni Mitchell and well, Kate Bush of course…and Deborah Harry and Yoko Ono. Then there’s Wanda Jackson, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton…I could go on. But when I was nine, it was definitely Barbra Streisand! I sang every note with her. She didn’t even know me, but I was tight with her. She never knew that, oh but me and her…Oh, then there’s Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, goodness gracious there’s a lot that I’m not even thinking of.”
And just like Streisand to Midler and Mariah to J-Lo, there have always been comparisons between Cyndi and Madonna.
“Well it’s apples and oranges. What I can I tell ya? Whatever. I like her. She’s another of my favourites. “
And what of those other Eighties megastars that we sadly lost this year – Bowie and Prince.
“Yeah that was pretty bad. Well I loved those guys too. I always tell people when you see others, tell them how much you love ‘em, because you never know when you’re gonna see them again. You know?”
With the Kinky Boots story all about diversity and equality, for Lauper it is nothing new. Most of her life she has supported and campaigned for the LGBTI community. Her song Above The Clouds was about Matthew Shephard, Hat Full of Stars tackled homophobia, and her life has been filled with gay friends and family. Her song True Colors not only became an anthem for the gay community, but led to the True Colors Fund, a non-profit dedicated to helping LGBTI homeless youths.
“It certainly has grown,” says Lauper.
“And we’re actually making headway. We’re trying to help the homeless youths right now, and we’re just coming up to the Damn Awards. We call them the Damn Awards because they are the Give a Damn Awards for certain people in the community. We also do the Home For the Holidays concert every year, but we are raising awareness and working with Washington to perceptively help the kids. We’ve been trying to bring all the different organisations, not just government, but also the finest people and philanthropists, all together so we can more effectively help the kids. We want to give them information and we have a website that they can go on, which connects all these organisations. That was a dream of ours and now we’ve done it. And we also have a summit where the kids come and talk, because if you want to help the kids then you have to listen to the kids, right? Kids are our future.”
It was also at the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago, that Cyndi performed dressed as a rainbow Statue of Liberty, not to mention the 1994 Games where she performed only to discover that her drag queen dancers were omitted from the JumboTron screen.
“I noticed that they weren’t putting the guys on the screen, and to me the entire show should have been on the screen and they didn’t do that. So that made me think that I could make a difference, because if they weren’t going to do it, I had in my mind that I was going to make those performances world famous. And I kind of did, because when I put them in the video Hey Now, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, they became kind of world famous.
And as for Aussies, there was that memorable moment at the 2008 Sydney Mardi Gras where she joined the likes of Olivia Newton-John and Margaret Cho for the 30th anniversary. Not to mention shopping for drag clothes in Oxford Street with Kathy Griffin.
“That was awesome. I didn’t even know there was a store like that, and I saved the headdress!” the singer says.
And as for the Mardi Gras event itself, you really just had to be there to appreciate it. It was certainly one event that stuck with Cyndi Lauper.
“That was so cool! Oh my god, come on! I was Marie Antoinette in her underwear. That was funny, but I was also so petrified, because I wanted to be good enough, and I don’t even know if I was. But when I went to go eat afterwards, because it was early in the morning, I was sitting there and a group of people passed by singing Same Old Fucking Story, and I thought hey, it did work out. They remembered that. I WAS good enough!”
Good enough? Now there’s a lyric! If you’re old enough to remember The Goonies, then you’d remember that pun! But seriously, Lauper’s persona extends further than that. Her name is global. She’s been on the cover of Rolling Stone, sang on the historic We Are The World single, guest starred on The Simpsons and has an official Barbie doll made in her honour. Those are the traits of a modern pop culture icon. In being such, does she ever stop to ponder that, or does she move on head-down to the next thing?
“No, I think of that sometimes. I hope that I did some good. You know? Music did a lot of good for me, so it’s kind of like ‘bring it on’, and ‘pay it forward’, as the expression goes. ”
Never one to shy away from speaking out, in 2012 Cyndi Lauper decided to tell her story in Cyndi Lauper: A Memoir. It was frank, entertaining and uplifting. Importantly she spoke about her battle with depression and overcoming the odds. Like with her music, it is something to inspire others.
“You never know what’s right around the corner, and usually when a lot of bad things happen, that means you’re getting it over, because the good things are coming. Keep imagining the good things coming to you, and they will.”
Wise words. It seems that energy and joy from thirty years ago just keeps on giving. In fact, it’s strutting the stage in the form of Kinky Boots!
Kinky Boots is playing at Her Majesty’s Theatre Melbourne. For more: kinkybootsthemusical.com.au
Visit the True Colors Fund: truecolorsfund.org
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