Cyndi Lauper has come a long way since her “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” days. Not that the superstar leaves all that behind her. It is as much a part of who she is now as her “Kinky Boots” awards or her husband and son.

In fact, it is the way Lauper weaves together all the disparate parts of her life that makes her so successful. She has always been a fighter, even from the first album.

“I had to wrestle my way onto my own album,” Lauper said of She’s So Unusual. “They said, ‘You should just stand there and sing. You should dress like Katrina and the Waves.’”

Cyndi Lauper is now 61 years old. She got where she is by not doing what people would expect.

She watched her son growing up, how he interacted with his father, and used those lessons to inform her writing of songs for “Kinky Boots.”

Don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his heels! Find out why at @KinkyBootsBway 12/8-13. http://t.co/9XZrd5kAHD #BroadwayInMiami

— Arsht Center (@ArshtCenter) June 11, 2015

“‘I’m Not My Father’s Son’ [from Kinky Boots] is about unconditional love and about being true to yourself,” says Lauper. “Not everyone has an ideal relationship with their fathers, and sometimes there is some stuff you can’t fix, but even Lola, whose dad rejects him, was able to find some closure with his father in the show.”

“I started observing my own son and husband,” Lauper says. “I got a lot of the lyrics in the chorus from watching [my son] Declan, how when he was really small he just imitated his dad … tried to walk like him and be just like him.”

“When kids are little, they try to be exactly like their dads,” Lauper observed. “But in the end, all little boys have to grow up and be the men who they are supposed to be, not the image of what they think their fathers want.”

Lauper even found inspiration from her mother-in-law who, she says, “used to tell my husband he had ‘the patience of Job,’ which I think all good fathers have to have,” says Lauper. “David is a great dad.”

Note to Cyndi Lauper: Girls just wanna have EQUALITY

— Isa (@isa_gusto) June 20, 2015