Money Changes Everything
| "Money Changes Everything" | |
|---|---|
| Single by the Brains | |
| B-side | "Quick with Your Lip" |
| Released | 1978 |
| Label | Gray Matter |
| Songwriter(s) | Tom Gray |
| "Money Changes Everything" | |
|---|---|
| Single by the Brains | |
| from the album The Brains | |
| B-side | "Girl in a Magazine" |
| Released | 1980 |
| Label |
Mercury 76065 |
| Songwriter(s) | Tom Gray |
| Producer(s) | Steve Lillywhite |
| "Money Changes Everything" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Single by Cyndi Lauper | ||||
| from the album She's So Unusual | ||||
| B-side | "He's So Unusual" "Yeah Yeah" | |||
| Released | December 22, 1984 | |||
| Format |
Vinyl (7") Vinyl (12") CSS |
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| Recorded | June 1983 at The Record Plant (New York City, New York) |
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| Genre | ||||
| Length | 5:02 | |||
| Label | Epic | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Tom Gray | |||
| Producer(s) | Rick Chertoff | |||
| Cyndi Lauper singles chronology | ||||
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"Money Changes Everything" is a song written by Tom Gray, frontman of the Brains, and was the band's only underground hit. It was recorded by Cyndi Lauper for her debut album, She's So Unusual and was released as a single in 1984, peaking at number 27 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song is about how money interferes with personal relationships.
The original single was released in 1978 by the Brains as a 45 rpm single on Gray Matter Records. The B side of the single was a song called "Quick with Your Lip". The initial underground success of the song led to the Brains being signed by Mercury Records. They rerecorded the song under the guidance of producer Steve Lillywhite for their 1980 debut album, The Brains. Critic Greil Marcus, listing it at number 10 of his Real-Life Rock Top Ten 1979, said, "Singer Tom Gray told his story in a strangled voice, as if he were trying to explain, but instead he laid a curse. This damned single ranks higher than I've placed it, but if it were anywhere else I couldn't end with it, and there's no other way the decade could end." Marcus would later write of the song, "It was hard, it hurt, and Cyndi Lauper's version makes the original sound compromised. She makes you wonder if Brains composer and singer Tom Gray even knew what he was talking about."
Gray, with his band Delta Moon, also recorded a version of the song for their 2007 album Clear Blue Flame.
Cyndi Lauper's recording of "Money Changes Everything" was released as the fifth single from her album She's So Unusual. It has been released in over 27 variations across the world, the most common being a two track 7" vinyl single (with varying covers). There was also a less common 12" vinyl single version. Lauper's cover features an appearance by Rob Hyman of the band the Hooters, playing his "hooter" (a Hohner Melodica) on the song's solo.
Lauper recorded an acoustic version, with guest artist Adam Lazzara (from the band Taking Back Sunday), for her 2005 album The Body Acoustic. "Money Changes Everything" became She's So Unusual's first release to fail to achieve top ten status on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 27.
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