Cyndi Lauper hit the stage on Thursday night (Dec. 31) to perform not one, but two songs during Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.
Live from Times Square, the ’80s icon kicked off her performance by teaming up with Billy Porter, with the pair (who collaborated on the 2013 Broadway musical Kinky Boots) turning her classic 1986 No. 1 hit “True Colors” into an acoustic duet.
Next, the singer offered a short, optimistic speech to introduce her second number of the evening. “This has been a year of great loss,” she said. “But in my heart, I feel that if we stick together, we just stick together and help each other, we can make it through. I have hope.”
Wearing an all-white pantsuit, Lauper then bounced around the stage performing her latest EDM-inflected single, the appropriately-titled “Hope.”
“See me untethered/ See me now/ And see us together/ And hope is what you came for/ A drop in time we share/ Hope and don’t give up/ Don’t give up,” the singer crooned, dancing as a DJ hyped her up from behind a turntable.
Featured on the compilation album Japanese Single Collection — Greatest Hits, Lauper first unveiled the music video for the upbeat track back in 2017 before officially dropping “Hope” as a single in 2019. Just last month, the singer also performed the track during her 10th annual Home for the Holidays benefit, which went virtual this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Other performers during the televised New Year’s Eve countdown included Jennifer Lopez, Miley Cyrus, Brandy, Doja Cat, JP Saxe and Julia Michaels, En Vogue and more.
Watch Lauper’s hopeful speech to ring in the new year here.
