Cyndi Lauper never considered another option. The flame-haired singer whose colorful sartorial flare and Betty Boop voice had music writers desperately searching for synonyms for “quirky” in the 1980s will tell her life’s story in the upcoming biopic Let the Canary Sing.
The feature-length film that debuted at last year’s Tribeca Festival in New York was directed by Emmy-winning documentarian Alison Ellwood (Laurel Canyon) and will debut on Paramount+ on June 4. “Over the years I’ve been asked to do a documentary about my life and work, but it never felt like the right time,” Lauper, 70, said in a statement about the film. “Until now. When I first met Alison Ellwood, I knew right away I could trust her to tell my story honestly, which was incredibly important to me, and she succeeded in that. I’d like to thank Alison, the producers, and all of the amazing documentary participants who agreed to be interviewed!”
The trailer for the doc dropped on Tuesday and it opens with a scene from the video for Lauper’s 1983 ballad “Time After Time,” in which the singer is seen schlepping her giant duffel as she leaves a trailer park. “Everyone always said, ‘what will you do if you fail?’ And all of a sudden we all heard it,” Lauper says in voiceover over the irresistible strains of her 1983 breakthrough hit, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”
The 90-second trailer takes us all the way back to little Cyndi’s Catholic school days, during which it became apparent, she says, “how stubborn I could be.” Singer/actor Billy Porter weighs in on Lauper’s embrace of queer culture in the sneak peek, noting that at that time, “queer people weren’t allowed to be queer and out. It was our allies having the conversation.”
The trailer also features Culture Club singer Boy George praising Lauper for doing whatever she wanted to and legendary R&B singer Patti LaBelle calling “Time After Time” one of her “favorite songs ever.”
Legacy Recordings will release a career-spanning companion album that takes listeners from the singer’s early days in the group Blue Angel (“I’m Gonna Be Strong”) through the global breakout success of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and other iconic hits such as “True Colors,” “I Drove All Night,” “Money Changes Everything,” “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough,” “She Bop,” “All Through the Night” and more.
Watch the trailer for Let the Canary Sing below.
