What’s “So Unusual” About Cyndi Lauper? : A Let The Canary Sing Review
Cyndi Lauper walked onto the Beacon Theater stage last night dressed in a two-piece floral suit, her lavender mohawk shining under the stage lights. She expressed to a theater full of people that she was somewhat surprised when she was approached with the idea to have a documentary made about her life. “But I’m not dead yet!” She spoke in that amazing accent. She was just like the persona the world knew before the premiere. Then the artist added, “...but if anyone were to tell my story,” she was glad it was Let the Canary Sing director, Alison Ellwood.
We got to know the traumas of her childhood, the careful concocting of her craft, and at some point, we got this scene of her shoot with Annie Liebowitz on Cony Island that would serve as the cover of her first solo album, She’s So Unusual. The words are scribbled over the final image of Cyndi dancing like a painting, her shoes kicked off in front of her. They took us to the moment they came up with the album title… such an ‘ah hah’. And sure, it works. It worked. But for the whole rest of the film, through career peaks and valleys, activist triumphs, and Tony awards, I kept asking myself why. Why do I, too, find Cyndi Lauper to be so wonderfully unusual?
You could point to her wild style or head-tilting persona, but I think what made the artist “so unusual” is at the core of both those things. And honestly… I wish the things that make and have always made her “unusual” weren’t so unusual. The world might be a better place. But the truth is, it’s not as easy as Cyndi made it look. I imagine it to take knowing yourself so well that you can kind of start to see the lines where “you” end and social influences, noises, and ‘shoulds’ begin. What an unusual thing to be so good at.
After seeing the film premiere, I’m left with this impression of a person so in tune with her knowing that to even try to sway her would be like trying to sway the sun from setting. It was present since childhood (then, perhaps a tool for survival) and steady through her career in an industry that wanted her to stay in a genre or sing what she was given. It was present through her activism and allyship which became law-changing, life-altering work for LGBTQ+ rights motivated by love and grief for a chosen family. Everything was intended. Behind the icon she created was a whole lot of creativity alongside moments of knowing when to say “hell no.”
And it worked. She was intoxicating and unstoppable. So much so that when taken to court in a lawsuit over her songs, the judge took the gavel and said, “Let the canary sing.” Let the canary sing…
I once heard Glennon Doyle (in a podcast, I think, or was it written?) break “integrity” down to its core in a way I’ve never forgotten. She hypothesized that “integrity” comes from a state of being “integrated”. And that to act with “integrity” was to integrate the truth that lies at the very core of your soul into every part of your life. It is to integrate that core belief, that inner knowing of who you are and where you stand into every single place you show up. Or you might say: to let your true colors shine through. Cyndi Lauper never wavered from hers. That’s what makes her “unusual.” And that commitment to radical self-alignment and integration of every color as they showed up is the very same thing that allowed her to show up for others.
What makes Lauper “unusual” is that when she said, “And that’s why I love you,” she fucking meant it. She meant that. I don’t care what people like to say… it is not easy to integrate those colors that sit beneath our thoughts, our feelings, our minds, and our bodies… until you see someone else do it. Someone has to show us theirs and say I see yours.
“I see your true colors and that’s why love you”...?!?! Yeah– it doesn’t get more powerful than that.
Written by: Calli Ferguson
P.S. This one’s for you, Dad!
