Cyndi Lauper: A Memoir (37 page)

What we learned astounded us and we realized quickly there was a great need for a national voice on the issue, someone whose sole mission is to address gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth homelessness, someone to help educate the public about the problem and engage them in finding a solution, someone to help support the incredible people and organizations—shelters, drop-in centers, etc.—helping these kids on a day-to-day basis, someone to help advocate for them in Washington, DC, and on the state and local level, and someone to help ensure that the places these young people seek out
help are welcoming environments—whether it be their homes or the social services available to them.

There is a lot of work that needs to be done and we are committed to doing everything we can through our new program, Forty to None. It is estimated that up to 40 percent of all homeless youth identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, yet only 3 percent to 5 percent of the general youth population does the same. The disparity is glaring and the primary reason it exists is because of family rejection. As a mom, I cannot imagine throwing my kid away for any reason, let alone because of his sexual orientation or gender identity. It would be like ripping out a piece of my soul. So, I am beginning a new journey, to do all that I can to get that number of 40 percent to none. It’s going to be a daunting task, but I’m confident that we will be successful, especially if we all come together to do it.

I
WANTED TO DO
the dance album
Bring Ya to the Brink
for so long. I started writing it in 2006, but I couldn’t get it done in time for the “True Colors” tour. I mean, I could have done it really quick, but what was I going to put out—some piece of poop? (You feeling that alliteration?)

So after the first tour, I got busy. I wrote “Set Your Heart” about the gay community, because I wanted to write something to make everybody feel better, to tell them that I was going to be there for them. A little part of it had a sampling of “Where Are All My Friends” from Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, because it reminded me of the gays being the scapegoat. If I were gay, I’d be standing there going, “Hey, where are all my friends?” This was an answer to that: “Hey, I’m right here.” But when I played it for the record company, they didn’t want to release it as the first single because they thought it was too commercial. What do you say to that?

“Same Ol’ Story” ended up being the first single in the clubs instead. I kept the “fuckin’” part for the dance clubs, but when I released it for anything else I had to take it out from the title so it wouldn’t be totally banned. Rappers do the same thing, and as my son told me,
“Ma, it has a curse word, it will be a big hit.” My son introduces me to a lot of music when we’re in the car on the way to hockey games, so I listen to Lil Wayne, Ludacris, and 50 Cent. I realized that once I get past the assault on language, 50 Cent’s voice is like butter.

Anyway, “Same Ol’ Fuckin’ Story” came out of a conversation I had with Carmen Cacciatore, my friend from FlyLife. He was standing next to me in the studio when I was singing to track, and we were upset about something Bush did, and he said, “Yes, same old fuckin’ story.” So I started singing that. I figured, “You know what? You gotta sing what people are saying.” He’s not the first person I heard use that phrase. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, one for me, two for you. That’s how it will always go, no matter how hard you work. And when you’re poor, or even when you’re middle-class, all you do is work, and there’s no quality of life. I know about that, even though like I said, everybody thinks I’m loaded.

Then Carmen said to me, “Maybe you should go to England. I could introduce you to dance artists and producers like Basement Jaxx and Digital Dog.” And my A & R guy Daniel thought I should also check out the Swedish music scene, because in pop history the Swedes stand out as having an incredible sense of melody. So in early 2007 I went to England and Sweden to collaborate with a bunch of dance people. At first it was so much fun with Digital Dog. They were kind of surprised that I was into working with them, but they were up for it. Basement Jaxx were up for it too, for one song, and then we tried to work together again and that didn’t work out too good. I think they didn’t think I was cool enough.

Unfortunately, a lot of these guys never read the credits so they didn’t know I’m a producer and an arranger and not just a singer, and they want to do it all. But as soon as you start telling me what to do, like I’m supposed to listen immediately, I won’t listen—immediately.
It’s not bad if somebody says, “Oh my God, try this because when you did that, I thought of this.” That’s collaborating. But not, “Now do this, and do this.” I don’t need somebody to walk me step by step. Though, in their defense, those guys were very eccentric. Sometimes they’d just disappear and even their manager couldn’t find them, which is kind of great when you think about it.

I think “Rain on Me” was good, but now when I listen to the words I wonder if it was too sentimental. Some inspiration for that song came from a conversation I had with my husband about our son, about how your kid can yell at you—he can rain on you, and it doesn’t matter.

Then the line “I saw you gather all your hopes with all your dreams” came from the fact that I have met many up-and-coming keyboard players, producers, and writers who I’ve collaborated with who, again, didn’t really understand what I do and wanted me—the singer—to take a backseat, have a lobotomy and just follow. I’m not a silent partner. I’m not going to dumb myself down.

Axwell wrote the track for “Rain on Me”. All these guys who write music tracks consider themselves to be producers but I do not. They do have a certain skill but I don’t consider what they do to be real production. Sometimes they make these Frankenstein cut-and-pastes, and once you introduce a real singer, it becomes flat; there’s nothing left in the track for them to latch on to. You might as well not have the voice there. The problem with some of these producers who write and program and mix is that they get too tied into their gadgets and don’t think about what a real record sounds like anymore. And sometimes they are so into their own thing, their trick, it’s difficult for them to work with different people. For me, there is an art form to production, so I purposely make them sign a contract as coproducers and cowriters. But I was
glad to collaborate. I was sick of my process; I wanted to see how other people did it.

Working well with other artists to create a particular vision that I have, without stymieing them in any way, is a challenge. I’m learning more and more how to do this without ruffling feathers, but I must confess that I don’t know how to do it as well as I’d like to. I’ve plucked a few chickens in my time. I have never been a delicate flower. Hopefully I am getting better. Or, as Yoda would say, “Better I’m getting.” I’ve got to be graceful, and smart, and patient, and secure.

It was hard at first for the Swedish producer Peer Astrom (who has been working on
Glee
from the beginning). He wrote “Into the Nightlife” and “Echo” with me and Johan Bobeck. Peer wanted something very specific. But me being the guy who was going to go out and sell it, made it all the more important that I could get behind it. But I always thought he was a very reasonable guy.

Some of the trouble with collaborating also had to do with the language barrier. Although we all spoke English, I’ve always said England’s English is not what we speak across the pond, baby. And when I stop and think about my lack of command of the English language in my own country—well, it’s pretty comical. I speak the Queens English, but the borough—not the person. My experience writing with other artists and producers on that CD was still inspirational though. I always hope to keep learning and collaborating with other artists who inspire me.

Lisa came with me to Sweden, and I was so grateful because we had an awesome time. At first we stayed in a Sheraton in Stockholm. It was new and nice and had a great gym. I would go every day, I told myself, but that only lasted for the first two days. I watched guys working out with big weights next to me as I lifted my measly eight pounds. But when I met Alex Kronlund, the first writer I met there, he said I
should move to someplace more inspiring to write. So I crossed the bridge to the Old Town.

That’s where Lisa and I went looking for an authentic restaurant to get some real Swedish food, like Swedish meatballs or something. We went down to the big tourist street and passed this place and decided it looked kind of cute and quaint. We saw a guy standing outside and asked him if the place served authentic Swedish food and he said yes. The guy’s name was Danny and he was a bartender there. He became our favorite bartender, and the place became our favorite hang. And it wasn’t just because the food was good, or because we knew how to get to it. It was because of Danny.

We got to talking about New York and Sweden and things to see while we were there. Danny said we should go up to this square, and he told us the history behind it while Lisa and I sipped aquavit and ate elk meatballs. I was told that aquavit is a very Swedish drink, and apparently the Swedes enjoy a bit of elk, which is drier than beef and tastes nothing like squirrel (which you know I’ve eaten) but is gamier than chicken.

So back to the square: Apparently in the Middle Ages a very arrogant Danish king crowned himself king of Sweden, too. So this self-appointed king guy pissed the Swedish people off so much that he caused a really big uprising, and the Swedish guys chopped up all the Danish guys, and there was so much blood dripping down the cobblestones that they renamed the square “Blood Square.” So said Danny. But when I researched it, the Danes weren’t beheaded, the Swedes were. Then the Danish king crowned himself. So Danny had it a little backward, unless it was the language barrier. Either way, blood was all over that square. Lisa loved that story because she loves murder mysteries. So we went to the square and I fell in love with those little cobblestone streets. I forgot about the blood
and the rolling heads, and I had one of my “stepping into history” moments.

So then we began to search for a boutique hotel in the Old Town—the kind of place that would keep me happily adrift in a world that was split between the then and the now—a place situated on a street where, if you looked down it and squinted long enough, you could see the Vikings and a wagon or two, being led by a horse or an ox.

The hotel we decided to stay in was dedicated to the memory of the British Royal Navy and Admiral Horatio Nelson and his lover, a Lady Somebody. Lady Emma Hamilton. She was a lady, but not like a “Hey, lady!” She was much fancier than that. The hotel had letters in cases from her to him. It was a love-affair museum. We found out that the hotel was also dedicated to sea captains and seafaring men in the time of Admiral Nelson. Two boat mastheads greeted me when I walked in. One was male and the other female. They were old but newly painted with enamel paint and gold trim, which made them look new and shiny. I felt giddy every time I saw them and I would wink at them.

Even though the record company had already rented the Sheraton hotel room for me, I found that staying in the historic area where this little boutique hotel really inspired me to write, so it was worth the money. The people at the boutique hotel said they had a suite for me but they actually had an apartment, which ended up being better than a hotel room. It was at the top of a winding stairwell. The furniture in the apartment was old and the antique chairs and the wooden floors echoed my steps against the white walls, which were hung with portraits of women. I wondered if they had paced the same floors, maybe waiting or dreaming of their lover’s embrace. And sometimes when I came back at night, I’d play some Marvin Gaye from my iPod on portable speakers and dance wildly around the living room as I tried to
remember what I learned from some classes I took on spirit dancing. A group of women met every month on the full moon to dance in a circle, and once I was invited to join them. I howled like a wolf, and I thought it was cool that you could behave like that and still be invited back. Anyway I danced around by myself and wondered if I and the dames on the wall were in our own circle dance. (But that was after Lisa, my adventurous, hardworking, good-sport manager, went to her room.)

The bedroom I took in the place was on the second floor and overlooked a courtyard that was a restaurant in the summer. Every dawn (which isn’t so early in Sweden due to the whole dark/light thing they got going on there) I’d wake up to the sound of two young women laughing and talking (in Swedish, of course). And that always made me remember where I was. Then I’d get up and order room service and write poetry in the dining room. I’d also try and do my yoga, but this new world had my head spinning. I just couldn’t stay focused on it, even though rhythm, music, and yoga are kind of alike sometimes.

So even though I was away from my family, I had a great time in Sweden, immersing myself in the culture and in the dance world. And when I came back, I took a break to understand what I had just done—to look at the good, the bad, and the ugly. (Ya know, my son used to get “time-outs” for singing the theme song of that movie in kindergarten. I still can’t get over how wrong it was to punish him for that. It’s such a great choral arrangement for kids to learn and so much fun to sing together. But I digress.) During this break I realized that touring inspired me. Being able to watch other artists perform and be passionate about their work woke me up.

So after some time off with the two D’s (Declyn and David) and Mama Grace (my mother-in-law, whom I adore), I went back to
Bring Ya to the Brink,
and eventually the music fell into place. It’s an exhilarating
moment when, after all my worrying about if I’ll ever get the songs right or if I’m good at what I do, suddenly the material comes alive. And you know what? I’ve come to understand that I may never feel that my work is good enough. But I really can’t let my doubt stop me from writing songs. Inspiration can strike anytime, anywhere. Every once in a while, I’ll wake up, and inspiration just comes to me, and I have to write. I have to keep writing and brave out every stupid line of ridiculous poetry for one good line. Which, seemingly out of nowhere, does happen. And when it does, I send out a thank-you.