“You could see that sound”: the song that transformed music for Cyndi Lauper
With just one Oscar-shaped jewel short of the coveted EGOT crown, Cyndi Lauper’s creative output over the past 40 years has been impressively eclectic, to say the least.
While most may know the New Yorker for her two-time Grammy-winning talents, Lauper picked up an Emmy in 1995 for her role on TV’s Mad About You and a Tony in 2013 for the musical Kinky Boots, for which she wrote the score. At 71, she shows no signs of slowing down, with 2025 marking the year that her work on the musical adaptation of the 1988 film Working Girl gets its world premiere.
There’s no doubt that an extensive scrapbook of influences – not to mention her four-octave range vocal – underpins such a prolific career. While she credits the Broadway musical South Pacific with unearthing her talents as a singer at a young age, Lauper cites The Beatles as having a major impact on her understanding of harmony and song structure. That melting pot of inspiration continues to overflow with the likes of Joni Mitchell, Lauryn Hill, Eurythmics, and Stevie Wonder, whose lyric-writing on ‘Living for the City’ struck a particular chord.
“It was the most amazing, brilliant thing,” Lauper said. “And talk about writing lyrics like a painting: You could see that sound. I knew that life was changing when I heard ‘Living for the City’ – just the rhythm of it, and the story that he was telling was so real. I knew that music was opening up.”
Before a single word is sung, the track demands attention from the get-go. While its opening Fender Rhodes might entice its listener to dance, its Moog bass line hints at a darker undercurrent.
Picture 1970s New York—vibrant, bustling streets are painted with a colourful array of bell bottoms, flowing dresses, tie-dye, sequins, and jumpsuits. Fashion saw bold and expressive styles come to the fore, reflecting a cultural revolution and newfound freedom at the time—for some. The unmistakable groove of ‘Living for the City’ might depict flowers, flares, and funk, but as soon as Wonder begins to sing of inequality, the true reality hits home with the listener.
We’re introduced to a young black boy growing up in Mississippi. While his parents struggle to earn adequate wages for the long hours they work, they instil love, affection, and resilience. As the propulsive rhythm repeats—a nod perhaps to the repetitive, unrelenting nature of discrimination that still echoes loudly today—we learn more of his and his family’s day-to-day trials and tribulations.
Having dreamed of a life in New York City, the song’s hero makes the move. At this four-minute mark, we’re jolted – both musically and contextually – into a new reality that this city of bright lights can so easily crush dreams as it makes them. Introducing us to a sort of radio play mid-song, the protagonist looks upon his arrival – as many so often do – and exclaims, “Skylines and everything!”
It’s perhaps here that the song presents us with a startling metaphor – in this skyscraper-laden city, eyes gaze upwards to buildings, to dreams, to success, and overlook the hard realities prevalent down on the streets. Wonder forces us to remove our aviators and take a look around.
During this middle section, we hear the line “Get into that cell, [N-word]” – recorded by a janitor at the studio upon Wonder’s request. Public Enemy later sampled the line on ‘Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos’, a track on their 1989 album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. That same year – and again two years later, when Sinead O’Connor supported the group with a tattoo of their logo on the side of her head – Public Enemy boycotted the Grammys due to the fact that the rap and hip hop categories would not be televised. Almost 20 years on, the longevity of the track’s relevance alongside its span of influence called to mind.
