Cyndi Lauper: The Epic of What I Know Now

After long years in the spotlight, Cyndi Lauper asks what she has learned rather than what she achieved, and the answer starts in Queens, New York, where she saw music as colors: red a cry, blue longing, yellow laughter against the dark. Before fame come small clubs, bands that vanished before anyone learned their names, and an injury to her vocal cords that forced her to rebuild her voice like a wounded body. The chapters then read her work: She's So Unusual and a woman who stopped apologizing for herself, her song about girls wanting fun turned into a claim on joy, Time After Time as the quieter face of loyalty and the fear of loss, and True Colors as a refuge for the marginalized that she carried into her advocacy for women, LGBTQ+ people and homeless youth. Later chapters follow her to Broadway with the music and lyrics of Kinky Boots, read a photograph of her holding red threads and embroidered fragments as autobiography in clothing, and take the documentary Let the Canary Sing as a demand to open the cage. The book closes with her farewell tour and her answer to what she knows now: know your color, protect your voice, and sing until the bars of the cage become strings.