From Wikipedia
I don’t see this? Has anyone heard the original? (if it even exists).
I know you can’t print entire lyrics on this board, but can someone give me a few examples of how the song could’ve been in the original male viewpoint.
I can’t answer the question, but I got a chuckle out of a country song by Heartland that came out last year, “I Loved Her First”, in which the singer is speaking to his new son-in-law while watching him dance with his daughter at their wedding.
Cyndi Lauper sang, “Oh Daddy dear, you know you’re still number one”
Heartland makes a callback to that line:
“I was enough for her not long ago
I was her number one
She told me so”
I’ve never heard Hazard’s version, but it seems that the necessary changes could have been pretty minor. If you revised the Lauper version to be in the third person (“She comes home in the morning light/Her mother says ‘When you gonna live your life right?’”) then it could be a song about a man’s fun-loving girlfriend who also has rather stodgy parents. The famous chorus works fine from a male perspective, with the man observing that “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”.
Some guy did a cover of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” that’s featured in the recent movie Confessions of a Shopaholic, if you want to check that out. According to the iTunes store it’s by Greg Laswell.
OK but this doesn’t sound right to me
She comes home in the morning light
Her mother says when you gonna live your life right
Oh mother dear we’re not the fortunate ones
But girls…
That makes no sense to me. Would you change it to “Oh mother dear you’re not…”
Sounds odd to me
or
The phone rings in the middle of the night
Her father yells what you gonna do with your life
Oh daddy dear you know you’re still number one
I mean that can’t be right 'cause how would the male singer know that the father is yelling before the phone is simply ringing. And how would you change that “Oh daddy dear…” Line, certainly a man wouldn’t call his father “dear.”
I guess it’s just me, but it makes little sense. I’ll check the Greg Laswell version out
Her mother says “We’re not the fortunate ones”
Her daddy says “You know you’re still number one”
there was a parody that came out shortly afterLauper’s song, by a group of male singers, called “Boys Just Wanna Have Sex”
And Weird Al’s parody “Girls just wanna have lunch”
Huh. I never thought of it from that perspective before, I thought the Cyndi character was saying both lines. I guess it does make sense your way.
Not one of Al’s favorites (and not one of his best).
The record label really wanted a Cyndi Lauper parody, since Lauper was so hugely successful and constantly on the radio at the time. With little inspiration, through forced writing, he was able to deliver but he felt the resulting song was sub-par.
Checking Wiki to see that my memory on this was correct, I see the story punctuated by the note that Yankovic’s The Food Album, which was a themed compilation (rather than a basic “Best of”) collecting previous recordings of songs that used food as the primary subject matter, omitted “Girls Just Want to Have Lunch” despite the fact that it fit the theme of the compilation.
Slightly more on topic, I have had the chance on a few occasions to hear Cyndi Lauper’s “All Through the Night” performed by the original (male) songwriter, Jules Shear. That one works easily enough sung by either a man or a woman.
I’ve also heard Jules Shear perform his song “If She Knew What She Wants”, which was a minor hit for The Bangles. The Bangles sing: “If She Knew What She Wants, He’d be giving it to her”. Jules Shear sings: “If She Knew What She Wants, I’d be giving it to her”.
I’d like to hear Prince do “Manic Monday”, just to find out who he dreamed he’d been kissing by a crystal blue Italian stream. However, unlike the above cited examples, “Manic Monday” was specifically written for a woman to sing- so it may have been Valentino all along.
Those were both speculative. I’m just saying there’s gotta be a million lines that would fit the meter and still make sense in the song.
Just thought I’d add this cover of the song, that I found on Soundclick.
Bet you can’t not bob your head when you listen to it… 
S^G
If it’s sung from the perspective of the omniscient singer, or even just an observing male, it could be “Oh mother dear they’re not the fortunate ones”
Same for the second bit. The singer or observer or even the mother telling the father he’s still number one.
Just like any song with the observing singer.
I checked this out. He doesn’t change any of the words, that is the words are the same as Lauper’s version. It is a REALLY BAD VERSION. It’s pert near a ballad. Well it is a ballad, but I just like saying “pert near.” I also like saying “betwixed,” but that’s another story.
<Raises hand.>
Maybe I’m overtired, but I don’t understand how you interpret that as him yelling before the phone rings, or why the singer knowing the phone will ring (?) would be a problem. There are plenty of stories told in present-tense omniscient narration, and I’ve never heard anyone complain about how they do know what is going to happen next.
It’s too bad he passed away last year, or you could have prolly sent him and email asking what the original lyrics were.
sound clips here, including a clip from “Girls…”
His band sounds a lot like The Brains, another band that Lauper covered to great success.*
- Money Changes Everything, in case you were wondering… but the original is better than Lauper’s version. I know 'cause I own the LP.
Ironically, it was only about a month after this thread was posted that someone found and uploaded Robert Hazard’s original demo of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” to YouTube. I thought I’d resurrect this thread to post the link here, in case people are still curious about the song.
Also, a follow-up question that I’m hoping someone can answer: How is it that Cyndi Lauper came to record “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”? That is, how did she (or her A&R rep) find the song to begin with? From what I can glean from Wikipedia, Robert Hazard wrote the “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” no later than 1979, but between then and Lauper’s recording of it in 1983, his only claim to fame was a couple of singles that didn’t even crack the top 40 on Billboard. He wouldn’t release his own album until 1984, and there’s no indication that before or since then he was working as a songwriter for other artists. How did Lauper come by his unreleased demo of “Girls…” and what made her decide to record it?
Hazard put "Girls just wanna have fun " on an EP released in 1982.
Eta: hmm, that’s what wiki said but looking up on music sites, doesn’t list that track on the EP.