4 Forgotten Lyrics by Cyndi Lauper That Feel Like Poetry

Cyndi Lauper is a lot more than meets the eye. Sure, she’s got that colorful, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” magic about her, but she also has a darker, deeper side. Here are some forgotten lyrics of hers that will likely inspire.

“Money Changes Everything”

“I said money, money changes everything / We think we know what we’re doin’ / That don’t mean a thing / It’s all in the past now / Money changes everything.”

Writer Tom Gray wrote this song after gossiping with someone who told him that she knew somebody’s partner was probably going to leave them when they found someone with more money. On She’s So Unusual, Lauper tells that story through these brutally honest lyrics about how money can turn people and love into something you don’t recognize.

“Code Of Silence” (with Billy Joel)

“But you’ve been through it once, you know how it ends / You don’t see the point of going through it again.”

Billy Joel once called Lauper “the only co-writer [he] was ever able to work with” in an interview with Howard Stern. The two of them wrote this song together, which appears on his album The Bridge. Joel has explained that he doesn’t really know what “Code Of Silence” is about, so it’s kind of up to interpretation. However, I think it’s pretty clear if you look at the lyrics that it’s a moody song about keeping secrets and holding onto old feelings.

“Calm Inside The Storm”

“I can live my life playing hide and seek / But when I look inside, it’s hard to make believe.”

This song appears on Lauper’s album True Colors. She wrote this one with Rick Derringer. Cyndi Lauper sings about a relationship that is reaching a weak point and tells her partner that, even though she knows there’s nothing she can really do, she wants to be the calm inside the storm for him. There’s some pretty introspective lyrics in this one.

“Walk On By”

“If you see me walking down the street / And I start to cry each time we meet / Walk on by, walk on by.”

This might not be one of Lauper’s better-known tracks, but it’s definitely one of the saddest in her catalog. In this song, she tells someone who was once in her life that even if she seems sad or lonely, they should let her be, so that she can move on.

 Photo by: Bill Marino/Sygma via Getty Images