April 26, 2026

The Greatest Cover Songs of All-time: 7. Cyndi Lauper - "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"

Show Notes
Transcript

Robert Hazard wrote "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" in 1979 from male perspective—guy at party singing about girls who want fun with him. Philadelphia demo, never commercially released. 1983: Cyndi Lauper needed debut album material. Producer played her Hazard's demo. Her reaction: why would I sing a guy's perspective? Then realized: flip it. Make it female declaration, not male observation. Changed lyrics, shifted perspective to women claiming independence. September 1983: peaked #2 US, MTV icon, first VMA for Best Female Video. Became feminist anthem—women's marches still play it. Most people don't know it's a cover. Garrett Fisher explores how perspective shift transformed male fantasy into female empowerment anthem.

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Kalaroga Shark Media. I'm Garrett Fisher and this is the

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Hit Maker Chronicles. We're at number seven on our countdown

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of the top ten best cover songs of all time,

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as voted by the staff at Kalaroga Shark Media. Over

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the past three weeks, we've looked at covers that transformed

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the originals, Covers that became more famous than the songs

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they were covering, Covers that most people don't even know

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are covers. This week, we're looking at something different, a

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cover that took a song written from one perspective and

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completely inverted it, turning it into something with an entirely

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different meaning. Girls Just Want to Have Fun by Cindy Lauper,

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the song that defined MTV, the song that gave us

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one of the most iconic music videos of the nineteen eighties.

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The song it became a feminist anthem, a rallying cry

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for women's independence, a cultural touchstone that transcended being just

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a pop hit. But here's what almost nobody knows. Girls

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Just Want to Have Fun was written by a man

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from a male perspective, about trying to pick up girls

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at a party. The original version, recorded by Philadelphia musician

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Robert Hazzard in nineteen seventy nine, was sung from the

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point of view of a guy, singing about girls who

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just want to party and have a good time with him.

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It was a fun, upbeat rock song with a completely

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different emotional core than what Cindi Lauper would turn it

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into four years later. This is the story of how

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Cindy Lauper took a song about male fantasy and transformed

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it into one of the most empowering songs for women

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in pop music history. Robert Hazzard was a musician from

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Philadelphia who'd been kicking around the local rock scene since

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the mid nineteen seventies. He had a band called Robert

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Hazard and the Heroes. They played clubs, recorded demos, built

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a small following in the Philadelphia area. Robert was a

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solid songwriter. He could write catchy hooks, memorable melodies, songs

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that worked well live. In nineteen seventy nine, he wrote

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girls Just Want to Have Fun. The song was built

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around a simple, infectious riff and a chorus that got

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stuck in your head immediately, but the perspective was distinctly male.

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Robert sang it from the point of view of a

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guy at a party, observing that the girls there just

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want to have fun, and implying that he's the one

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they want to have fun with. The lyrics had this playful,

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somewhat cheeky quality to them. It wasn't a profound statement

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about gender or independence. It was a guy singing about

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girls being carefree and wanting to party. The perspective was external,

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looking at women from the outside, making assumptions about what

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they want. Robert Hazard recorded it as a demo. It

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circulated in the Philadelphia music scene. Some people heard it

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and thought thought it was catchy, but it never got

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picked up by a major label. It never became a single.

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Robert kept playing it live with his band and it

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remained a regional curiosity. And that's where it might have stayed.

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A fun demo by a Philadelphia rocker that only locals knew,

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if not for a woman with bright orange hair and

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a voice that could cut through any production. Cindy Lauper

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was born in Brooklyn in nineteen fifty three. She'd been

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singing since she was twelve years old, playing in cover bands,

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trying to make it in the music industry, getting dropped

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from record deals, struggling financially. By the early nineteen eighties,

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she was in her late twenties and this was her

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last shot. If her solo career didn't work, she was done.

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She signed with Portrait Records, a subsidiary of Epic. The

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label paired her with producer Rick Chertoff, who'd worked with

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acts like Joan Jet. They were building her debut album

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and they needed songs. They needed hits writing her own material,

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but they also wanted covers, songs that had proven melodies

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but could be reimagined. Rick Chertoff knew Robert Hazzard. He'd

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heard girls Just Want to have Fun and thought it

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had potential. He played the demo for Cindy. Her first

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reaction was, this is a song written by a guy

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from a guy's perspective about girls. Why would I sing this?

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But then she listened to it again and she realized,

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what if I flip it. What if instead of a

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guy singing about girls who want to have fun, it's

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a girl singing about herself and other women wanting to

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have fun. What if I make it about female independence,

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about women claiming their right to enjoy themselves without needing

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male approval or validation. That shift from external observation to

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internal declaration changed everything. Cindy and Rick started reworking the song.

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They kept Robert Hazzard's basic melody and structure, but they

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changed key lyrics to shift the perspective. Where Robert's version

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was about him watching girls at a party, Cindy's version

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was about her living her life the way she wanted

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to live it. They added layers to the production, bright synthesizers,

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a driving beat, background vocals that sounded like a chorus

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of women joining in the declaration. The arrangement became bigger,

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more celebratory, more defiant, and then Cindy sang it not

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with Robert Hazzard's playful observation, but with conviction, with joy,

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with a sense of ownership. She sang it like someone

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who'd spent her whole life being told what she should do,

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how she should behave what was appropriate for a woman,

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and was finally saying, I don't care what you think.

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I'm going to have fun. Girls just want to have fun.

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Was released as the lead single from Cindy Lauper's debut album,

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She's So Unusual, in September nineteen eighty three. It entered

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the Billboard Hot one hundred in October. By January nineteen

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eighty four, it had climbed to number two, where it

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stayed for two weeks, kept from the top spot by

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Van Halen's jump. But chart position didn't tell the whole story.

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This song was everywhere. MTV, which had only launched in

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nineteen eighty one, was desperately looking for content. They needed videos,

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They needed stars who understood visual presentation, and Cindy Lauper

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gave them exactly what they needed. The music video for

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Girls Just Want to Have Fun is one of the

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most iconic videos of the MTV era. Cindy with her

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bright orange hair, mismatched clothes, dozens of bengals, that joyful,

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a narcic energy. Her actual mother appears in the video

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playing her disapproving mom. There's dancing in the streets, women

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of all ages celebrating together. It captured something that pop

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music videos hadn't really shown before, women having fun together,

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not for male attention, but for themselves. MTV play constantly.

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The video won the Best Female Video Award at the

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first ever MTV Video Music Awards in nineteen eighty four.

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Cindy became an MTV icon, a symbol of the network's

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early identity. The song became a cultural phenomenon. It was

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played at parties, clubs, on radio stations across every format.

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Women connected with it immediately. It became an anthem for

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a generation of young women who were pushing back against

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traditional expectations, who wanted careers and independence and the right

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to enjoy their lives without apologizing for it. And here's

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what's remarkable. Most people who heard it had no idea

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it was a cover. Robert Hazzard's version had never been

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released commercially. It existed only as a demo that circulated

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in Philadelphia music circles. So when Girls Just Want to

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Have Fun exploded, it appeared to be Cindy Lauper's song,

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written for her, about her experience and original composition. Robert

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Hazard was credited as the songwriter. He received royalties. The

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song made him wealthy. He earned more from Cindy's version

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than he ever made from his own performing career, but

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he remained largely unknown to the general public. People didn't

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say that Robert Hazard song that Cindy Laupper covered. They

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said Cindy Lauper's Girls just want to Have Fun. The

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song's impact went beyond the charts. It became a feminist

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anthem in a way that transcended the nineteen eighties when

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women's marches happened. In the twenty tens, girls Just Want

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to Have Fun was played when women celebrated achievements. The

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song was there. It became shorthand for women claiming joy

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and independence as their right. We'll be right back. So

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why does a song about women wanting to have fun

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become a feminist anthem? Because in nineteen eighty three, and

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honestly still today, women claiming the right to enjoy themselves

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without justifying it to anyone was a radical act. Think

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about the context. In the early nineteen eighties, women were

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making progress professionally, but there was still enormous pressure to

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be respectable, to not be too loud, too visible, too

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demanding of pleasure or joy. Women were expected to be serious, responsible,

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to think about their reputations, to consider what other people

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would think. And here come Cindy Lauper in bright orange

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hair and a dozen bangles, singing about how she just

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wants to have fun. Not I want to have fun

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in a way that's appropriate and won't upset anyone, Just

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I want to have fun. The video reinforced this. Women

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dancing in the streets together, women of different ages, Cindy's

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actual mother, young women, older women, all celebrating together. The

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message was this isn't about attracting men or being sexy

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for someone else's benefit. This is about women enjoying themselves period.

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That's why the perspective shift from Robert Hazzard's version was

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so crucial. When a man sings about girls wanting to

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have fun, there's an implicit assumption that the fun involves him.

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When a woman sings about wanting to have fun, she's

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claiming that desire for herself, independent of male validation. Cindy

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understood this instinctively. She'd been in the music industry long

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enough to know what it was like to be told

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what women should and shouldn't do, how they should and

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shouldn't present themselves. She'd been dropped from record deals, told

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she wasn't commercial enough, struggled financially while watching male musicians

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with less talent get opportunities she couldn't access. So when

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she sang about wanting to have fun, it wasn't frivolous.

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It was a declaration of independence. And millions of women

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heard that declaration and felt seen. Robert Hazard, to his credit,

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was gracious about the transformation. In interviews over the years,

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he acknowledged that Cindy's version was better than his, that

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she found something in the song he hadn't fully realized.

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He made peace with the fact that his biggest hit

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was something someone else had sung. He continued making music,

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releasing albums, touring in the Philadelphia area. He built a

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career on being a respected regional artist and a successful songwriter.

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Girls Just Want to Have Fun royalties allowed him to

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keep making music without having to compromise or chase commercial success.

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He passed away in two thousand and eight at age

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fifty nine. His obituaries led with girls Just Want to

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Have Fun, acknowledging that this one song, or rather Cindy

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Lauper's version of this one song, was his legacy. Cindy

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Lauper went on to have an incredible career. She had

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other hits from She's So Unusual Time after time, she

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bop all through the night, She won a Grammy, She

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became a gay icon, a champion of LGBTQ plus rights,

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a Broadway composer. She's had a career that spanned five decades.

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But Girls Just Want to Have Fun remains her signature song.

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It's the song people associate with her most strongly. It's

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the song that defined MTV's early years. It's the song

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that every tribute band plays, every eighties playlist includes every

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nostalgic look back at the decade features, and it's still

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a feminist anthem. In twenty seventeen, during the Women's March

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on Washington, Girls Just Want to Have Fun was one

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of the songs played. The song has been covered by

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artists ranging from Miley Cyrus to Postmodern Jukebox to STRFKR.

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It's been used in dozens of films and TV shows.

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It's been streamed hundreds of millions of times. Every time

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it's played, it carries that original message women have the

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right to enjoy themselves without needing permission or approval. That

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was radical in nineteen eighty three. It's still radical now.

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That's why Girls Just Want to Have Fun is number

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seven on our countdown, because it's the perfect example of

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how a cover can completely transform a song's meaning by

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shifting the perspective. Because it took a male fantasy and

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turned it into a female declaration of independence. Because it

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became more than just a hit song, it became a

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cultural statement that transcended the decade it was released in.

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Robert Hazard wrote a catchy pop song about girls at

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a party. Cyndi Lauper turned it into an anthem that

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women would sing for generations. Same melody, same basic structure,

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completely different meaning, and in the process she proved that

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sometimes the best way to cover a song is to

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take it away from the person who wrote it and

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give it to the people who need it most. This

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is Garrett Fisher and this is the Hit Maker Chronicles.

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Join us next Sunday for number six on our countdown

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of the top ten best cover songs of all time.

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H