The Cyndi Lauper song that bewitched Miles Davis

Cyndi Lauper in 2025 he turned 72 and 2025 will remain – whatever the continuation of his career – a very important year. The reasons? At least a couple. Number one: on August 30th at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles she performed the last concert of her farewell tour, the “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour”a live show that saw, among others, also take to the stage Cher And Joni Mitchell. Number two: on November 8th she was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and on that occasion he performed the three symbolic songs of his career: “True colors”, “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” And “Time after time”.

These last two songs were part of his debut album, “She’s so unusual”and they are the ones that made her a star. It was early 1984, the first single of Cyndi Lauper, “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”reached second place in the US sales charts, only to block his way to first position “Jump” of the Van Halen. The conquest of the top of the chart, however, was only postponed for a few months, it was achieved with the second single of the album, “Time After Time”.

The title of the song was inspired by the title of a 1979 science fiction film which had the actor as its protagonist
Malcolm McDowell
– known for having played the role of
Alex
the protagonist of
“A Clockwork Orange”
– which he read while leafing through a magazine dedicated to television programmes. That title was initially supposed to be temporary but ended up becoming an integral part of the song, to the point that Lauper couldn’t change it.

“Time After Time”
it was one of the last songs written for
“She’s So Unusual”
. Most of the album had already been recorded, the producer
Rick Chertoff
he introduced them
Rob Hyman
leader of the rock band the
Hooters
so that they could collaborate on the creation of a song. As Hyman told Songfacts: “I was sitting at the piano and I started laying out what would become the chorus. It almost had a reggae feel to it, it was a little livelier, a little more up-tempo. We started having fun with that chorus, then the verse melodies started coming in.” When Cyndi added the words the two realized that it was “not as lively a song” and was “a little more bittersweet, a little deeper in feeling and a little more touching.”

Much of the inspiration for writing the song came from the fact that both musicians were going through a period of upheaval in their respective love lives, with Hyman coming out of a relationship and Lauper facing difficulties with her boyfriend/manager

David Wolff
. As the New York musician told Rolling Stone in 2021: “What I thought was really cool was that we were able to take real things, real things that actually happened, things that people said, things that people did and put them into a song.”

“Time After Time”
it won the awards for Best Female Performance and Best Pop Video at the 1984 American Video Awards and was also nominated for Song of the Year at the 1985 Grammy Awards. In 1985 the song gained further notoriety with the version that made it a jazz legend
Miles Davis
for his album
“You’re Under Arrest”
. Years later,
Cyndi Lauper
he admitted that although the song had been covered by dozens of artists and used in numerous films, “the most honorable moment I ever felt was when Miles Davis covered it… the way he played it was pure magic.”

He told Rolling Stone magazine that he believed the song was a profound, almost spiritual account of how love can be tested: “If you love someone, you’re there. Whatever happens, you’re there. I think that’s what caught people’s attention. The fact that there were real moments of humanity. Then the melody was catchy, the beat and my voice were hypnotic. That helps make it even more emotional. If you write something and put something very real into it, then the listener will feel something very real.”