Cyndi Lauper Instagram – In 1994 I put out the greatest-hits collection Twelve Deadly Cyns . . . And Then Some. I reworked “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” to give it a reggae feel and it became “Hey Now (Girls Just Want to Have Fun).” The single did well in Europe, and for a couple of weeks I did a European tour with twelve drag queen dancers. I kind of just wanted them to be there dancing with me, but I couldn’t help them put together a routine because I’m not a choreographer. We were basically doing it by the seat of our pants. But they had a good attitude about it. And it was me and twelve drag queens in a bus, which was kind of awesome. They were a bunch of kick-ass rockers passing around vodka bottles. During the tour, I talked to the guys about the discrimination that they faced, and I figured that maybe I should write a song for them. I wanted to make it a dance song to celebrate them. It became “Ballad of Cleo and Joe” on my next album, which I had started writing with Jan Pulsford, my keyboard player on Hat Full of Stars.