How ‘Meet the Beatles!’ Changed Cyndi Lauper’s Life

Cyndi Lauper’s music doesn’t sound much like The Beatles’ Meet the Beatles! Despite that, she said Meet the Beatles! changed her life. She explained how John Lennon, in particular, inspired her. Lauper later covered one of John’s most important solo songs.

Cyndi Lauper said The Beatles’ ‘Meet the Beatles!’ felt like it belonged to her

During a 2022 interview with Pitchfork, Lauper discussed her early musical influences. “My mother had a beautiful voice,” she said. “She played a lot of Italian music. She played Puccini.” Lauper said Puccini’s Madame Butterfly was one of the soundtracks of her childhood, alongside classic Broadway musicals like The King and I, South Pacific, and My Fair Lady.

The Beatles’ Meet the Beatles! changed everything. “My sister Ellen and I didn’t know there would be anything that would be called ‘our music’ until we saw The Beatles on Ed Sullivan,” she recalled. “It’s when my life changed. We would dress up like The Beatles for our family and perform with mops. By singing with my sister like that, and listening to John’s voice, I learned harmony and the structure of songs.”

Cyndi Lauper felt The Beatles and The Supremes were part of the same shift

Lauper saw The Beatles as part of a broader shift. “At 10, the radio changed,” Lauper said. “It was the divide between my mother’s ears and mine. 

“All of a sudden, there were groups,” Lauper remembered. “The Supremes, they were just kids — if you were a little kid, you listened to that and all of a sudden you’re singing with them. I always felt they were singing to me. I was like, “Baby Love?’ Oh yeah, I get that!'”

The Beatles impacted Lauper in other ways. She covered “Strawberry Fields Forever,” as well as John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” and Paul McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazed.” A full-blown Beatles cover album from her would be incredible!

How ‘Meet the Beatles!’ and 2 of its most famous songs performed on the pop charts

Meet the Beatles! became a big hit in the United States when it reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for 11 weeks. It spent 74 weeks on the chart altogether. “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was released as a single from Meet the Beatles!, with “I Saw Her Standing There” as its B-side. The former topped the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks, lasting on the chart for 15 weeks in total. The latter climbed to No. 14 in the U.S. and stayed on the Billboard Hot 100 for 11 weeks.

According to The Official Charts Company, Meet the Beatles! was never a hit in the United Kingdom. On the flip side, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was No. 1 in the U.K. for five of its 22 weeks on the chart. It later reached No. 62 and became a hit for another three weeks. “I Saw Her Standing There” merely reached No. 90 there for a single week. 

Meet the Beatles! helped put The Beatles on the map in the U.S. and it changed Lauper’s destiny.