Girls Just Want to Have Fun

Robert Hazard wrote "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" in 1979 and performed it around Philadelphia with various bands, where a demo he recorded found some local college radio airplay. He wrote it as a rock song from a male perspective, and nothing about that early version suggested what it would become. His friend, the producer Rick Chertoff, brought the song to Cyndi Lauper, who recorded it as a pop-electronic track for her debut album, She's So Unusual, released by Portrait Records in 1983.

Lauper changed some of the lyrics at Chertoff's suggestion, shifting the song's attitude so it conveyed, from a feminist perspective, that women want the same experiences men can have. She also had her own ideas about how the recording should sound. For the sessions, Chertoff brought in keyboardist Rob Hyman and guitarist Eric Bazilian of the Hooters, and Lauper later said they were "my band before I had a band." Released as her debut single, it reached No. 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and topped the charts in ten countries, including Australia, Canada and Japan. It sold 14 million copies worldwide.

Success came at Hazard's expense. His 1984 album Wing of Fire sold poorly while Lauper's version went Gold, making him a millionaire through royalties. After Lauper claimed in interviews to have co-written the song, Hazard sent her a cease and desist letter. The royalties bought him a New Jersey lake house and a horse farm, though he said federal taxes took most of the money.