Here’s What Cyndi Lauper Must Play on Her ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour’

Her true colors? All of them. In a career stretching 47 years, Cyndi Lauper, 70, has taken on pop, punk, dance, funk, blues, country and Broadway. And don’t forget the literal colors, from her shifting Day-Glo hair and kaleidoscopic eyeshadow palette to a vibrant, flamboyant fashion sense that would startle a peacock.

The singer-songwriter is bringing her four-octave vocal range, eccentric style and brash-tawkin’ personality to the road one last time on her “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour,” a 23-city trek that starts Oct. 18 in Montreal and wraps up Dec. 5 in Chicago. It’s her first major outing since 2016’s “Detour Tour.”

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Lauper will be joined by special guests to be announced later, according to Live Nation. Stay tuned to AARP for updates.

The Brooklyn-born singer is also the subject of Let the Canary Sing, a new documentary streaming on Paramount+. The film traces Lauper’s career from a rebellious, struggling bar singer in Queens to global superstar, MTV darling, committed feminist and tireless activist. It’s directed by Alison Ellwood, 62, who made the music docs Laurel Canyon and The Go-Gos. The title derives from a lawsuit brought against Lauper by a former manager after she left the band Blue Angel. When the judge ruled for Lauper, he pounded his gavel and pronounced, “Let the canary sing.” Legacy Recordings has released a companion album, Let the Canary Sing, available on vinyl and in a digital expanded edition.

Note: Paramount+ provides a discount to AARP members and pays AARP a royalty for the use of its intellectual property.

The singer also appears in The Greatest Night in Pop, a documentary on Netflix that revisits the 1985 recording of megahit charity song “We Are the World,” and in this AARP video True Talk With Cyndi Lauper: Don't Listen to the Haters.

And she just sold a majority share of her music to Sweden’s Pophouse Entertainment Group, founded by ABBA singer Björn Ulvaeus, 79. Pophouse created ABBA Voyage, the immersive virtual concert that featured digital avatars subbing for the vocal group onstage. Lauper envisions a less glittery production that replicates New York and focuses on her upbringing with the women that influenced her most: her mother, grandmother and aunt.

But if you want to see the wacky, eclectic songbird in the flesh, the farewell tour is the best bet. Lauper has a deep well of material to draw from: her 11 studio albums, soundtrack contributions, covers and collaborations. Here are a dozen songs on our fantasy set list (and we won’t be surprised if she does a few of them).

‘True Colors’ (1986)

Impassioned vocals, a strong melody and an uplifting message about self-empowerment made this an instant classic and a gay anthem. Written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, the song was rejected by Anne Murray before being sent to Lauper.

‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ (1983)

Robert Hazard wrote this song with a randy wink from a male perspective, but Lauper flipped the tone and message, creating a lasting hit that’s both a bubblegum romp and a feminist anthem.