Crunch Time Mom Cyndi Lauper's Christmas Song Is So Much Better Than Mariah's

"Hey, maybe I'll dye my hair, maybe I'll move somewhere, maybe I'll get a car, maybe I'll drive so far that I'll lose track. Me, I'll bounce right back... Maybe I'll clear my junk, maybe I'll just get drunk on apple wine. Me, I'll be just fine and dandy...It's like a hard candy Christmas."

Give me Cyndi Lauper's version of this lesser-known classic any day over that Mariah Carey Christmas song that's playing nonstop in every single store in America right now. Lauper recorded "Hard Candy Christmas" in 2015 as a duet with Alison Krauss, and I've got to say the salty-sweet-but-definitely-not-sugary song hits the spot during the holiday madness this week. Lauper didn't originate the song: Carol Hall wrote it for the "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" musical (which turned into the must-see film starring Dolly Parton). Parton herself recorded an excellent version of the song in 1982, as did Reba McEntire, LeAnn Rimes, and others. But we're partial to the Lauper-Krauss version. 

Little-known fact about Lauper: She had her son, Declyn Wallace Thornton Lauper, when she was 44. (That's why we're calling her a Crunch Time Mom; let's avoid the grim "advanced maternal age" term whenever we can.) Here's another reason we're in a Lauper frame of mind at the moment: She got us to relive our entire adolescence—the dreamy, non-angsty-filled moments anyway—in the season finale of "Stranger Things," which starred Lauper's killer "Time After Time." That song slays us every time.

While we're on the subject of Cyndi Lauper: Remember "We Are the World"? A friend forwarded that video the other day and we realized it's been years (decades?) since we'd heard the song. In the video you'll spot Lauper, and also Diana Ross—who incidentally also had her oldest son, Evan Olav, at age 44.  Ross is also the mother of Tracee Ellis Ross of "Blackish."

As '80s celeb-filled holiday fundraiser songs go, USA for Africa's "We Are the World" wins any day over Band Aid's 1984 benefit song "Do They Know It's Christmas?" (which is well-meaning and fun to listen to, sure, but culturally fuck-witted to a startling degree). If you were a pop star in the '80s and didn't get invited to perform in either of those songs, you should've fired your manager. Anyway...

Hope you enjoy at least some of the songs above, and Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Joyful Kwanzaa to all. Whichever holiday you celebrate, or even if it's none at all, have a fabulous time of it. Drink some apple wine if you can get your hands on that, and be fine and dandy, and don't worry about "clearing your junk" until 2018. With any luck, 2018 will be a junk-clearing year all around. Cheers.

Image above courtesy of Cyndi Lauper's "Merry Christmas.... Have a Nice Life" studio album, 1988.