TIME AFTER TIME (CYNDI LAUPER SONG)

"'Time After Time'" was a single by singer Cyndi Lauper, the second from her ''She's So Unusual'' album, and it reached #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 charts on June 9, 1984. The song was at #1 for two weeks and to date is her second highest charting and most commercially successful single worldwide after "Girls Just Want to Have Fun".
"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.

Contents

Writing

Music video

Other versions

Charts

Official versions

2005 acoustic version

Credits

External links

Writing

Lauper co-wrote "Time After Time" with Philadelphia rocker, Rob Hyman of The Hooters. 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.

Music video

The video for "Time After Time" was about a runaway leaving her lover behind. Lauper sings 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 and brother appear in the video, as well as Lauper's then-boyfriend David Wolff. The video was directed by Edd Griles.

Other versions

"Time After Time" has been covered, either in live performance or on a recording, by at least 120 different artists across a broad spectrum of genres, including Blaque (on ''Blaque'', 1999), Eva Cassidy, Allison Crowe, Miles Davis (on ''You're under Arrest'', 1985), Dilana, Distant Soundz, DJ Sammy, Dover, Everything But the Girl, Eddie Money and Juice Newton (as a duet), The Gandharvas, The Hooters, INOJ (reaching #6 on the Billboard Top 40 in 1998), Phil Keaggy, Lil' Mo, Patti LuPone, Matchbox Twenty, Joey McIntyre, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Willie Nelson, Nichole Nordeman, Quietdrive, Saosin, Spoken, Sugar Ray, Maria Taylor, TRUSTcompany, Tuck and Patti, Uncle Kracker (on the ''Clockstoppers'' soundtrack, 2002), Frank White, and Cassandra Wilson (on ''Traveling Miles'', 1999). This song was sampled for Paris Hilton's song "Heartbeat," on her album ''Paris''.
It was played in the "dance scene" of ''Romy and Michele's High School Reunion'' (1997) and ''Napoleon Dynamite'' (2004), and as a main theme sung by Katie Cook in ''View from the Top'' (2003). Mark Williams and Tara Morice performed the song in the ''Strictly Ballroom'' soundtrack (in the scene where Scott and Fran dance on the rooftop). Eva Cassidy's version was featured in the TV series, ''Smallville'', and it was added to the first ''Smallville'' soundtrack, ''The Talon Mix''. It was also covered in 2006 by Quietdrive, with their version appearing during the dance scene of the film ''John Tucker Must Die''. It also contributed to a running gag in the second season of the TV series ''My Name Is Earl''.
The song has been performed on ''American Idol'' twice in 2005 and 2007. Nadia Turner performed the song on Billboard #1 Hits week in the fourth season. Brandon Rogers performed the song on the 2nd week of the semi-finals in honor of his grandmother in the sixth season.
In dedication to the victims and families of the Virginia Tech massacre, rapper Lil Flip made a song that heavily samples Time After Time, but the tempo is changed in order to provide a heart-warming and sad type of mood. The chorus of the tribute song is actually Cyndi Lauper's original song's chorus line. The title of the tribute is under the name of Lauper's original.
The song is also used in the TV and radio commercial of the Toyota Vios, a small compact sedan available only in south east Asia.

Charts

Chart (1984)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	1
U.S. Adult Contemporary	1
U.S. Adult Contemporary Recurrents	25
U.S. ARC Weekly Top 40	1
Australia ARIA Singles Chart	6
Canadian Singles Chart	1
Chilean Singles Chart	1
Colombian Singles Chart	1
French Singles Chart	9
German Singles Chart	6
Holland Singles Chart	5
Israeli Singles Chart	2
Italian Singles Chart	5
Japanese Singles Chart	60
New Zealand Singles Charts	3
Switzerland	7
UK Singles Chart	3

Official versions

#Album version - 4:01
#2005 Acoustic Version with Sarah McLachlan
#2006 QuiteDrive cover version
#2007 INOJ cover version

2005 acoustic version

The song was re-released in a new acoustic version on Lauper's 2005 release ''The Body Acoustic'', which features acoustic versions of some of her songs. "Time After Time" is performed as a duet with Sarah McLachlan.

Credits

★ Written by Cyndi Lauper, Rob Hyman

★ Produced by Rick Chertoff

★ Executive Producer: Lennie Petze

★ Associate Producer: William Wittman

★ Engineered by William Wittman

★ Arranged by Cyndi Lauper, Rick Chertoff, Rob Hyman, Eric Bazilian

External links

★ Video on VH1 Classic website

★ Time After Time Songfacts