Last week's Riki Lindhome video sparked memories of my teenage years in the 1980s when Tipper Gore and her morality posse spent many a sleepless night worried that popular music might give me unwholesome thoughts about sex and women in general. I remember they even came out with a "Filthy 15" list of songs that were wholly inappropriate for young ears--which gave all or us teenagers a great starting place to find audio smut. I have to confess that I wasn't a huge fan of Cyndi Lauper at the time, but I found her song, "She Bop" somewhat catchy. Imagine my surprise to discover it was on the "Filty 15" list because it glorified masturbation! Really? I'd assumed it was about girls wanting to go dancing. Oh, sure, if you listen closely to the lyric you'd pick up references to Freud and going blind and such, but even today I find most of her lyrics in that song unintelligible and am only able to really make them out by reading the accompanying captions. Needless to say, once I found out what it was really about, I became a much bigger fan of Cyndi. So thanks for that, Tipper!
As I've grown older, I've come to appreciate a number of musical artists I didn't care for in my youth. Cyndi Lauper is one of them. Couldn't stand her back in the 80s, but my stance softened in the 90s and now I like most of her stuff. Odd, then, that my absolute favorite song of hers is a cover of Roy Orbison's "I Drove All Night." As a rule, I prefer originals over covers, but damn, I like this one more than Roy's version, and I adore Roy Orbison. I could've sworn I'd posted this one before, and apparently I thought that about eight years ago as well, but extensive searches of my blog turn up nothing. Which is weird. This video is fantastic. Stylish and sexy and filled with intense longing. Cyndi really brings her A game to this, so I find it odd that her music career was fading during what should've been a high water mark. What can I say? The public's tastes are fickle. Yours truly is a case in point.
I heard Cyndi Lauper's "Money Changes Everything" the other day, and thought immediately that I'd go with it for today's video installment. But then I got to thinking, and was pretty sure I'd already run it in the past. So I did a search, and turned up nothing on my blog. Not only that, but I turned up exactly zero Cyndi Lauper videos out of something like a decade of doing this. For real? I have a hard time believing that. Lauper's one of those singers I like much more now, in my dotage, than I did in their heyday. I really love her cover of "I Drove All Night" and coulda sworn I ran that one as well, but I can't find it ("She Bop" either). "Money Changes Everything" is probably my second favorite of hers--it's got a little more angst and grit than most of the other work off her first album, but is still kinda catchy. Anyway, enjoy Cyndi in her flying garbage can!
Previously on Friday Night Videos... Steve Winwood.
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