SONG OF THE DAY

“Time After Time” by Cyndi Lau­per (She’s So Unusual, Epic Records, 1984). Writ­ten by Cyndi Lau­per and Rob Hyman.

INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)

- It reached #1 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100 chart on June 9, 1984, and remained there for two weeks. World­wide, the song is her most com­mer­cially suc­cess­ful sin­gle after “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, and reached #3 on the UK Sin­gles Chart and #6 on the ARIA Sin­gles Chart.

- “Time After Time” was nom­i­nated for Song of the Year at the 1985 Grammy Awards. The bal­lad is con­sid­ered a clas­sic of the 1980s and is still played fre­quently on adult con­tem­po­rary radio.

- The song is known for its numer­ous cov­ers by a wide range of artists, includ­ing an instru­men­tal ver­sion by Miles Davis.

- Lau­per co-wrote “Time After Time” with Philadel­phia rocker Rob Hyman of The Hoot­ers, who also sup­plied backup vocals to the song. In a 2006 inter­view with Sound Off with Matt Pin­field (episode 212) on HDNet, Lau­per related how the song was writ­ten. She indi­cated much of the lyrics were writ­ten about occur­rences in the stu­dio and her life at the time. The line “the sec­ond hand unwinds” referred to pro­ducer Rick Chertoff’s watch which was wind­ing back­wards. Hyman explained in an inter­view with Song­facts that he and Lau­per stayed in the stu­dio after the ses­sions com­pos­ing the song.

- The video for “Time After Time” was about a run­away leav­ing her lover behind. The video opens with Lau­per watch­ing the 1936 film The Gar­den of Allah. Lau­per sings (signs) the title of the song to the deaf as she is leav­ing the train sta­tion. The video was played in heavy rota­tion on MTV. Lauper’s mother, brother, and then-boyfriend David Wolff appear in the video, and Lou Albano, who played her father in the “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” video, can be seen as a cook. The video was directed by Ed Griles. Por­tions of the video were filmed at the now closed Tom’s Diner in Rox­bury, the inter­sec­tion of Cen­tral Ave & Main St in Whar­ton, New Jer­sey, and at the Mor­ris­town train station.

VIDEO OF THE DAY