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"She Bop" was the third (1984), commercially released, solo single by singer Cyndi Lauper (USA).
Writers: Cyndi Lauper, Stephen Broughton Lunt, Gary Corbett & Rick Chertoff.
Producer: Rick Chertoff.
The song was controversial, owing to lyrics that addressed masturbation. Part of the lyrics, "They say I better stop - or I'll go blind"' is an allusion to a common myth about masturbation. It was also included on the Parents Music Resource Center's "Filthy Fifteen" list, due to its sexual lyrics. Other songs on the list included tracks by Madonna, Prince, AC/DC, among others. This led to the creation of the parental advisory sticker. In an interview on the Howard Stern Show, she stated that she recorded the vocals of the song naked.
Lauper said she wanted little kids to think it was about dancing, and to understand the real meaning as they got older. She never directly stated in the song what the meaning of the song was, so it could receive airplay. The plan worked.
The single has been released in over 32 variations across the world, the most common being a two track 7" vinyl single (with varying covers) and a two track 12" vinyl single (also with varying covers).
Lauper recorded a slow ballad version of the song for her album The Body Acoustic.
An accompanying music video aired heavily on MTV and featured Lauper as a quirky sexual liberator leading the brainwashed masses to their own liberation. (This was done in metaphor showing teenagers as disgusting fast-food consuming zombies.) There were many double meanings indicating the song's true meaning, including a magazine that Lauper is staring at titled "Beefcake" and other sexual meanings such as the "self-service" sign and three gas pumps with the signs Good, Better and Nirvana in the cartoon part of the video, the vibrating motorcycle, the "masterbingo" part of the video with "Uncle Siggy" Sigmund Freud as host, and Lauper wearing blackout glasses with a white cane in several scenes of the video. In fact, the video doesn't go as far as the lyrics, as the magazine referenced in the song ("…in the pages of a Blueboy magazine") was a popular gay erotica magazine of the time, whereas the magazine Lauper holds represents the tamer—and somewhat closeted—erotica of an earlier era.
Chart performance: To date, 'She Bop' is Lauper's third-highest charting and third-most commercially successful single worldwide, after Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Time After Time. It charted in the Top 50 in 16 countries (going Top 10 in 12 of them), including: #3 in the U.S. and #6 in Australia and New Zealand. Inexplicably, it was not a success in the UK, only climbing to #46.
B-side: "Witness". Formats: Vinyl (12"), Vinyl - (7"), 3" CD. Recorded: 1983. Length: 3:38. Label: Epic Records. Certification (US): Gold.
Sites: Wikipedia.
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