Nearly 39 years after its release and 13 years after it was posted on YouTube, Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” video has topped 1 billion views.
“Huge news!,” Lauper tweeted on Monday.
It is the first of Lauper’s videos to reach the milestone.
The song was written by Robert Hazard four years before Lauper recorded it. Lauper thought the original lyrics were misogynistic and made some changes.
“When I got my feminist hands on it, I knew I wanted to make it into an anthem for all women. I wanted the song to be uplighting and joyful,” the 68-year-old singer said, in a statement.
“When it came time to make the video, it was really important to me to make sure we included women from every walk of life. I wanted every little girl watching the video to have the joyful experience of seeing herself on that screen. I wanted us to be a community.”
“Girls Just Want to Have Fun” topped the charts in 10 countries, including Canada. The song received a pair of nominations at the Grammy Awards and the video was named Best Female Video at the MTV VMAs, where it was nominated in six categories.
Lauper directed the video, which was made in New York City’s Lower East Side (the early street scene is on Gay St.) with a reported budget of $35,000 U.S. It features Lauper’s real-life brother Fred and their mother Catrine. (Her father is played by wrestling manager “Captain” Lou Albano.)
The video boasts some state-of-the-art visual effects (for the time) thanks to digital editing equipment belonging to Toronto’s Lorne Michaels.