Singer, songwriter and activist Cyndi Lauper is one of the best friends the LGBTQ+ community has ever had.
Her multi-artist “True Colors” tours, which ran from 2007-2010 and raised funds for the Matthew Shepard Foundation, PFLAG and Human Rights Campaign — and the founding of True Colors United in 2008, which continues to help homeless LGBTQ+ youth — are just a few examples of how.
Lauper is also a lifetime musical trendsetter. She recorded a duet with the late Tony Benett more than 10 years before Lady Gaga did and released dance-oriented and country music albums well before Beyoncé. When it comes to her legendary personal style, social media fashion critic Nicky Campbell recently declared Lauper an icon in his review of the 2024 VMA fashions.
Now, as we prepare to say farewell to Lauper on the concert tour circuit — her “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” farewell tour comes to Amalie Arena in Tampa Nov. 6 — she was generous enough to make time for an interview.
WATERMARK: Looking back, do you remember what your first, headlining tour as a solo artist felt like for you?
Cyndi Lauper: I just wanted to make sure I had places to go. I wanted the sound to be really great. I don’t know if I accomplished that, but I did have those big speakers that I used to run up on. That’s me! I loved that. Because I saw all those wonderful English groups, the ska bands…
Like Madness and The English Beat and The Specials?
The Specials! I thought they were extraordinary. The singer [Neville Staple] … was so fierce, singing so great, and he climbed up on top of the speaker and put up his fist and he’s singing his guts out. I’m thinking, “It’s Mighty Mouse!” When I was a kid that was kind of my favorite show, I don’t know why. (Laughs.) But it always influenced me and I remember in ’84, ‘85 I was still free. When ‘86 came, then I became a prisoner of the system.
Being on a major record label?
I wasn’t allowed to touch anybody. I wasn’t allowed to go out to them [in the audience] or have them come to me. It was totally different and I totally hated it.
Did you imagine that 40 years later you would be embarking on a farewell tour?
Well, at some point, sure. I think that for me this is the perfect time. Because it’s a kind of bucket list of what I always wanted to do. In the beginning, it was roughneck style.
Whatever I could jimmy-rig, I did. When I got to a certain point, like when we were doing the [live] “Money Changes Everything” video, I had fantasies of a cherry-picker. Because of our budget, everyone said “Well, you can’t get a cherry-picker but we’ll give you a garbage pail and a pulley system.”
I thought to myself, “Oh no, like Oscar the Grouch?” I had a friend who was a great interviewer, and she used to interview everybody from a garbage pail. So, of course, that’s what my people gave me to go up in the crowd. I thought it was a pulley system. The pulley system was actually 10 men with rope holding it. When I started to shake [while singing], I started to slip out of their hands. They brought me right in. That could have been the reason that the lawyer made me sign my will before I left.
Are you planning to sing songs from each of your albums?
I’m really trying. I didn’t get anything from [2010’s “Memphis Blues”] in there because there’s too many songs. I usually get to the point where I say, “Hey, guys, if the visuals look good for this, can we switch the songs?” What I did was I wanted to do visuals [on the tour.] I wanted to do performance art. That means you have to be on a click. Like when I went out on the [Rod] Stewart tour and we used the lyric video of “Sally’s Pigeons.” You can’t do that and not be on a click, because the guy running visual has to be on the click. If nobody’s together, it’s like, “Hey, what the hell? Now the words are there… no they’re not.”
It’s like a badly dubbed movie.
Yeah. But this time I got this wonderful visual director, Brian Burke, who worked for years with the creative director of Cirque Du Soleil, and not having people flying through the air. In the beginning of all that, that was my fantasy! I wanted to fly through the air, and I got … a garbage pail. It wasn’t going to happen for me. Now, I’m 71! I’m not gonna go flying through the air.
It’s a mixture of collabs with artists and art. Art and music. The whole thing is an artist collective, any time you go out on tour. It’s not just you. You’re with other dance artists if you’re a dancer, or you’re with musicians. Or you’re with lighting designers; that’s art, too.
We did these collabs and I’m excited to present a show like this because it’s something I always wanted to do. Fingers crossed that it all works out. I’m even going to do costume changes this time, which you know I never do because it’s so bothersome.
But I can do it in a way now that I’m comfortable with. I just want to be able to do this as a gift to all the people that followed me through all my crazy twists and turns. I did all those twists and turns because I kept hitting brick walls. You keep hitting the gatekeeper, you gotta find your way around that gatekeeper.
Earlier this year, “Let The Canary Sing,” Alison Ellwood’s documentary about you received a theatrical release. After having your memoir published in 2012, did it feel to you like the documentary was the next logical step?
Well, not for me. I didn’t want to have a documentary. It was the pandemic, and everyone was saying, “Everybody’s doing documentaries now, Cyn! Come on, what are you doing?” I was like, “I’m not dead!” Then I started watching documentaries on the streaming services and I saw “Laurel Canyon.” I felt it was an extraordinarily captivating documentary for me because it was the history of music. All of the people and players in that story were very much influential for me as a growing artist, especially in the ‘70s. I looked and saw who directed it…
Alison Ellwood!
When they came at me again, I said, “I want a film, not a TV special. So, how about Alison Ellwood? She makes films.” She wanted to do it! I think she did a good job. It’s not your typical story. I don’t think anybody’s story is typical, right? We think we know people but I guess we don’t. You think, “It’s typical! You start a band.” Which is always my theory! If something’s wrong, start a band, start playing out, you’ll feel a lot better!” (Laughs.) It doesn’t always go that way.
With the end of touring in sight, is there a possibility that you might do more film work for a potential Oscar to complete your EGOT status?
Listen, I happen to love independent films. For that I would write … I like an independent movie because then you get to talk to the director and then you have to understand what their vision is. That’s interesting, because each director is a different personality and a different kind of artist. You have to listen and see what story they’re trying to tell and then have a couple of different suggestions.
The upcoming election is so important, especially for women and LGBTQ+ folks. Is there anything you’d like to say to your fans?
Absolutely! There is an organization called Vote411.org. You go online and you find out all the questions and all the people that are running … so that you can make an intelligent decision on who is going to represent you, not them.
This war against women has been going on since the ‘60s, it’s just been going and going, and we need to stop it because we are half the population. As far as the LGBTQ people, you have to vote. You have to be informed. Every time you have to vote, you vote! Don’t say, “Oh, it doesn’t matter for this one.”
It matters! Because they put laws in there. There are community people that represent you and you need to start on a community level, a grassroots level to ensure that there are people that are going to speak for you as a human being. We are all human beings here. As I said, women are half the population and LGBTQ, I venture to bet are pretty large part, too.
This country was founded on the separation of church and state. Separation! I don’t want anybody to have ownership over my body. They say they want local communities in charge but yet they have SCOTUS making federal laws about what you do in your bedroom and what you do with your body and who you are and nullifying families.
Oh, I have a lot to say about that. You need to vote! You vote on every voting occasion. You can’t just lie down and get rolled over. This is our country, too.
Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” tour plays at Amalie Arena in Tampa Nov. 6 at 8 p.m. Learn more about her LGBTQ+-inclusive legacy and buy tickets at CyndiLauper.com.