Cyndi Lauper: 'Fame is tricky. There's no book on dealing with it'

It's a pleasure talking to you, it's unbelievable that you can talk to the whole planet like this. You think it's just England but I saw somebody from Australia. I'm sending you all a big hug and because we're all citizens of this planet, please take care of her so we can leave it good enough for the next humans.

That they see that people evolve, and acceptance - when you accept yourself, you accept others too, and those six steps of happiness (even though originally there were 12 but they were cut because it had to go quicker).

Captain Lou - when I first came out, they set up, we had this great publicist, Susan Blonde, and Dave Wolf was a real schemer. Dave Wolf, when I met him, he was the human fly, so he wasn't far from the kind of wrestling world, the drama of it. My idea with Captain Lou, cos I met him on an airplane, was to, I loved the old beach movies with the Great Kahuna, they'd go to the beach, sit down, and Buddy Hackett was usually the kinda dopey biker guy that would ask the great Kahuna something, and you never understood what the Kahuna really said, and I thought to myself, wouldn't Captain Lou be a great Kahuna. And he always had a Polynesian shirt, he was a great advisor. when we had the first record party, I sat at a desk with Captain Lou, who was my advisor, and he taught me things like the peg principle and it was so funny watching him explain that stuff to very unsuspecting press people there to interview me, and so it was - he made everything fun, he really did. All that publicity stuff you have to work so hard at, when he was around, it was an adventure, it was fun, and sometimes he brought his wrestling pals.

It depends on the songs you sing. I try to choose songs that meant something with ideas that were bigger than myself. And to be part of the song Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and see how it has affected women, I busted my butt to make sure there was as much diversity in that group of girls as I could get so that every little girl watching could see that she too was entitled to a joyful experience in life. And so I am not tired of singing Girls because it's an anthem, because it's affected generations of women, and because when I went on the Women's March, I actually saw several signs that said Girls Just Wanna Have Fundamental Rights. It's true, we need them, and so I'll never stop singing that song. I'll probably look funny singing it on a walker, but I'll have to dress it up. Maybe some crinoline. Do I recommend fame? Fame is tricky. You need it to continue your work, but it is tricky and there is no book out, How to be Famous for Dummies, because I would have bought it. But if you want to continue your work, it has to be viable enough to earn money to live off of, for other people to live off of, so it has to be somewhat viable and you have to be somewhat famous, for your craft. Not fame for "I don't know what you're famous for" like the Kardashians. I don't know what exactly they do. That kind of fame, I wouldn't want. I would suggest developing your craft and that whatever you do in life you do it with passion and love and devotion, and if you are going to become famous, become famous for some contribution you're giving to the world.

Well yes actually, I thought it was a mechanical thing but it was actually 10 men with a pulley and a rope and I had no idea! But they were asking me to sign my will before I went on and that kind of upset me a little bit - why do you want me to sign this now?! So I guess it was very dangerous and no one told me. You know how Mick Jagger and Tina Turner always had a cherry picker? I had 10 guys hold me up in a trash can because that's all I could afford. And they brought me down right away because I started to jiggle it and they were losing their grip. I wouldn't have jiggled it if I knew it was 10 men!

That I know less than I thought I did and to really try, even though everyone told me then, but to really try and take a moment here and there, to see where I am, stop working for a second and just breathe the air for a minute.

I did get away with it because I did not mention anything about hands. I just mentioned all the cliches of what happens to you when you do bop. And it was fun! I mean, I laughed pretty hard writing that song. A friend of mine, it was his idea. He called me up and said, "Come on, it's about female masturbation, nobody's writing this." And I said, true. We went to research this, I said there must be Playboy for women or something, and I found this magazine, Blueboy, had no idea it was for gay men. And so that's why Blueboy magazine is in there! And it just sang well, Blueboy. You know, I only really got in trouble when I went on Dr Ruth's show, then I got in trouble, then all of a sudden I was on the Filthy 15 list. I had to tell my mother what it was about and she was in the video - and all my aunts! That was all my aunts! They had no idea. Captain Lou - no idea. And he's so Catholic that when you walk into his house he has a big crucifix on the outside of the door, and a big crucifix on the inside of the door. He was an incredible guy, really sweet, and it didn't seem to bother him, and then he did Goonies with us and he was so wonderful. That video had to be my favourite video of all time - it was so our gang. And Dave Wolf, my manager, boyfriend, was so spectacular - he did this physical stuff that was amazing. All flailing arms, and then in the end Andre the Giant comes and saves the day. And the Bangles were in it. She Bop - again, all my friends and family. But calling up my mother and telling her that, she had to go back to my aunts because it was all over the news that all of a sudden She Bop was about down-there-of-which-we-do-not-speak!

It depends - when I watch somebody sing sometimes and they're really opposite from me, I think, what would that sound like? I like the new bands a lot, the rock bands because I came out of a rock band, and even when I was doing pop, Money Changes Everything, I was kicking a garbage can across the stage.

There was a time when everybody was just copying, so I started to wear things that I didn't think people would wanna copy. I did see something I wore with Rod Stewart that was quite... it was the stockings! The top of the stockings came out from the bathing suit. I wore an old bathing suit and a jacket, that made sense. But it should have been different stockings - fishnets. But that was the moment to be wild, to be expressive, to use colour, to mismatch. It was kind of like a big F-U to culture, because this was counterculture.

I miss what I used to do, it was more performance art. I've tried to bring that back into my work again. I've always admired performance art. the problem is, as I went out on the road, I would be told that's too expensive. And I tried to do some stuff with a flashlight once and that didn't work out, it wasn't that bright. But usually I do that stuff in the dance clubs more, if I was doing a dance club routine.