Cyndi Lauper – True Colors

The story of True Colors

There are songs that leave an indelible mark on people’s hearts, others that strengthen bonds of life, friendship or love and are like a strong and indestructible glue that only music can create.

In today’s song this indelible mark is rooted inside, since its birth and will remain for an entire generation like a flag to wave, telling that physical, mental and sexual freedom is like colors: broad and full of nuances. A song that for years has accompanied a social, political and above all identity struggle like that of GAY, LESBO, TRANS-GENDER AND LGBT.
Today I’ll tell you about “True colors” by Cyndi Lauper.
We are in the mid-80s and, as we have often written, they are important years for music, because finally the artists, both singers and authors and arrangers, “freed” themselves, leaving behind the old classic “stereotypes” such as that of “musical lightness”.
“True colors” by Cyndi Lauper is one of those songs that will put aside, in the corner, those clichés, that is, that pop can only create fun and entertainment.
The song was written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly and later by Cyndi Lauper herself, who had it adapted under another musical guise, shedding light on a movement that until that moment had been in the dark. But let’s proceed calmly.

In those years Billy Steinberg was a very well-known author because he had already signed songs such as “Like a virgin” by Madonna and other famous hits also written by Lauper herself.

With “True colors” Steinberg wanted to change musical register and with that text he wanted to capture the essence of the intimacy that is created between people and that is not seen, that is, the most authentic and pure part that is inside each of us. So he built the song that was conceived in the form of a letter, imagining writing to his mother. For the music he asked for the collaboration of Tom Kelly and, once the piece was finished, he began to look for the voice, which according to Steinberg’s canons had to have sweetness, strength and had to reach the soul of the people: Steinberg was looking for an artist who communicated beyond words.

The song was first proposed to a Canadian singer, Anne Murray, then to Cyndi Lauper. Cyndi reading the text and listening to the genre immediately grasped the depth and delicacy of the song, there was only an indecision due to the genre, because it was a “gospel” style. However, Cyndi agreed to interpret “True colors”, because reading the text was like a warm hug in a time of need. In fact, that text came at a particular moment in his life because he had just lost a dear friend, who died of AIDS.

And in those years (the 80s and early 90s) AIDS was a disease as ferocious as it was insidious, because there was little knowledge on the part of everyone from both a scientific and human point of view and unfortunately people affected by AIDS were marginalized and even defined as “outcasts”. For this reason that choice was due above all to the text, which in an almost “epistolary” form, whispered a new concept: that of giving strength and courage to those who feel different and excluded from society. The song “True colors” is aimed at all those who are afraid of showing themselves as they really are, inciting them to bring out their true colors, without hiding behind the models or stereotypes that society imposes.

Nelson Mandela said: “We give publicity to HIV and AIDS so as not to hide it, because the only way to make it seem like a normal disease like tuberculosis, like cancer, is always to bring it out in the open and say that someone died because of the HIV virus and AIDS. People will stop considering it as something extraordinary”.

So for Cyndi Lauper the time came to bring out the rebellious girl that she had been with the song “Girls just wanna have fun” but in a different way: for this she distorted the piece. She made it even sweeter and more intimate. She sang it with a whispered voice, like someone who only needs to be heard, almost like a prayer. Thus the artist managed to create a real magic, a unique and melancholic atmosphere that only the theme of love, seen as friendship, can generate. The transformed song, liked everyone and also the title “True colors”, so much so that Lauper herself wanted it as the title of the album. In August 1985, “True Colors” had the long-awaited success both as an album, always remaining in the top positions in almost all the world, becoming a gold record in Canada and a platinum record in the United States, and as a song, which over time became an anthem for the rights of the LGBT community. Lauper has also always paid great attention to the battles of these communities, anticipating decades of “social struggles” and above all bringing and waving those colors of freedom that are still felt today, in a blind world incapable of welcoming differences.

“So don’t be afraid to let them show, your true colors.. are beautiful like a rainbow show me a smile then”