Chart entered : 14 January 1984
Chart peak : 2 ( 4 re-recorded and re-titled "Hey Now " in 1994 )
Number of hits : 16
We move into 1984 now and the girls start to get a bigger slice of the action.
Cynthia Lauper was born in 1953 ( attempts to trim a few years off her age in 1984 were scuppered by her reminiscing about seeing the Beatles live ) to a German father and Italian mother . After a turbulent time at school she left home at 17 to escape an abusive stepfather. She spent most of the seventies working in covers bands in New York until she damaged her vocal cords and had to take a year off. Some sources say Cyndi released a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "You Make Loving Fun" in 1977 but this is disputed and having heard "it" I'm drawn to the latter camp; the backing track is all wrong for 1977 and the vocal sounds like a treated version of the Christine McVie original. There's also nothing about it on 45cat.
In 1978 Cyndi met saxophonist John Turi and formed the band Blue Angel who were eventually signed by Polydor. Blue Angel were a new wave band with transparent sixties and fifties influences headed up by Cyndi's remarkable voice. Their one eponymous album in 1980 is a strong set of songs with no obvious reason for its failure other than it was released at a time when the competition was exceptionally strong. Their competent cover of Gene Pitney's "I'm Gonna Be Strong" reached number 37 in Holland and led to some appearances on European TV but that was as good as it got. The following year the band collapsed acrimoniously and Cyndi had to file for bankruptcy after being sued by the manager. She went back to the New York clubs supporting herself with jobs in retail and waitressing. She got another chance after meeting David Wolf who became her manager and got her signed with Portrait Records.
"Girls Just Want To Have Fun" was the lead single from her debut album "She's So Unusual" released at the same time. The song was originally demo'ed by obscure US songwriter Robert Hazard. In that form it was a hard and fast New Wave track , halfway between The Cars and The Boomtown Rats, and sounded like a carping complaint rather than a celebration of good times. Cyndi tweaked the lyrics ( with Hazard's blessing ) and turned it into a pop song. With a slamming take no prisoners machine beat similar to A Flock of Seagulls ' Wishing ( If I Had A Photograph Of You ) a springy rhythm and quirky synth lines , Cyndi turned it into a lightly feminist declaration of intent. It does go on too long; Cyndi could have done with adding an extra verse rather than over-extending the final chorus but it got her off the mark on both sides of the Atlantic. Ten years later she re-visited the song for a compilation album setting it against an Ace of Base pop reggae shuffle and it was almost as big a hit again. That could well have influenced a just-formed girl band then just getting their act together and whose signature song carries pretty much the same message.
Whether the song really helped Cyndi's career in the long term is another question; I suspect your average pop fan would struggle to name more than three of her other hits. With Cyndi's deliberately bratty vocal , kooky dress sense and amusing video it was easily mistaken for a novelty hit and were it not for the slow burning charms of the follow up "Time After Time" ( which peaked at 54 initially ) she could easily have been another Toni Basil in chart terms. Morrissey , reviewing one of her singles for Smash Hits later in the year, disparaged her as "She's So Incredibly Ordinary" and I suspect there are still some who dismiss her on the basis of this song. Of course one other factor that may have held her back was emerging at exactly the same time as another female singer from the Big Apple who is the subject of the very next post...
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