Understanding Time After Time

I have a surprising number of thoughts.

What makes a great love song? Time After Time has been covered so many times that it's easy to forget there was an original, but before it became a cultural standard, it was a simple last-minute addition to Cyndi Lauper's debut album, She's So Unusual. Even at the time, she and her cowriter Rob Hyman knew they had something special, and they treated the process of writing this song with a level of reverence and care that comes through in every aspect of the final production, from its hauntingly simple melody to its hollow, ticking groove. It's a timeless classic that transcends its origins while remaining intrinsically tied to them. So let's talk about it!

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Also, thanks to Jareth Arnold!

[tone]

Some additional thoughts/corrections:

1) You may have noticed the staff paper is different in this video! That's because I'm testing out a new merch item. It should be available soon, and I'll have a full announcement then, but figured I'd at least mention it here.

2) Honestly there's a lot to say about Bazilian's part specifically that wound up getting cut from this video because it didn't really serve the broader structure of the story I was telling, but I did want to give credit where it's due. He's doing a lot of subtle things throughout to the song to fill just enough space that the track never gets boring.

3) I said the bass was played on a Prophet-V, but to be a little more precise, Wittman says he wasn't exactly sure if it was a Prophet-V or another patch on the Memory Moog. He thinks it was a Prophet, though, so I went with that 'cause it was the most definitive source I could find.

4) Another interesting thing about the chorus vocals is that Lauper and Hyman start each line harmonizing in perfect 4ths and 5ths, but then near the end, that slips into 3rds, giving the final words a more colorful tone. The effect isn't huge, partly due to the blending thing I talked about, but it's there and I think it's cool.

[alexgrunde]

Miles Davis considered this to be one of the best pop songs ever, and in his later career he almost always did a cover of it during his concerts.

[mateusbez]

Time after time is one of the greatest pop songs ever written.

I am more of an old school rock/folk guy and lots of people get surprised when I start playing this song in the middle of some Bob Dylan classics. It is one of my all time favourites. I often hear "I never thought you'd play that".

Honestly, it is simply an astonishing great song.

[TheRetroBassist]

20:17 "...and Hyman responds by calmly holding his line until she finds her way back. It's a really beautiful moment."

Not gonna lie, this part of the analysis left me teary-eyed.

[KnapfordMaster]

The kick drum is also the linn drum machine. afaik the whole track is purely just the linn. My personal favorite detail of this song is the very end when she hesitates finishing “time after-“ for the last repeat, with one ever so soft “time” just as the song fades to silence. Gives me chills every time, as does her theramin-like vocal outro on All Through The Night.

[jhv]

The cabasa sample always sounded like a ticking stopwatch to me(as you mentioned, too fast to be a clock). Listen to that intro, and then listen to, say, the intro to the 60 Minutes tv show and you'll hear what I mean.

[bonecanoe]

I think about my parents when I hear this song. They were married for 45 years until my father died of cancer in April, and now the song has a whole new meaning to me.

[PressRecord]

19:49 _"...which makes them feel less like a single person and more like a conversation"_ (draws Gollum). No, stop... I can't breathe.... 😂😂😂😂

[TDawgBR]

And now I kind of want "True Colors" as a follow up.

[zombieslayer]

honey get up, 12 tone uploaded (i literally got out of bed for this)

[lp-xlld]

I never really gave this song much thought concerning its content and construction. But that's what I love about this channel: it makes me see even familiar music in a different way, and that's always good

[jreber]

Growing up in the 80s in a Philly suburb, I saw Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian many times as The Hooters. I even saw them at a local high school and opening up for Heart in Hamburg, Germany! They performed Time After Time at that concert, which my Army buddy and I sang at FULL volume, much to the amusement of our fellow German audience members. 😊

[EAS]

To me, this song is about thinking of that relationship that never quite works but you just are drawn to each other several times over the years.

The fact that it goes IV-V-iii-IV I think is intentional cause you’re wanting it to resolve, but it just loops back to the IV, with no clear resolution but to repeat the loop again, all this is with the main voice doing the tonic at the end also wanting it to resolve but it goes back to the IV. This is Cyndi reliving those memories of that relationship that never ends fully. They keep playing in a loop.

When it resolves to the I for the verses, it’s Cyndi popping into a particular memory to show how it starts out well. The phrases here are happy ones that go from the 1 to the 3 note in an uplifting phrase, like a new relationship. Then, things start to get out of sync relationship-wise. When he says, “go slow, ” as an example, it changes back to that same IV-V-iii-IV phrase and the cracks show in the relationship. It gets stuck back in that loop while they go back to the tonic for the chorus to proclaim to each other they will always have a happy space (the tonic, when singing “time after time”) for each other in their hearts even though things always seem to go bad in reality.

It’s what keeps the song timeless and able to be replayed, because it’s got that loop of wistful nostalgia of something you like that never resolves quite right baked into it at the beginning.

[rneumeye]

Live... Cyndi often just does this with just dulcimer. It's powerful. 😌

[atquinn]

An absolutely incredible song fundamentally (chord changes, melody and lyrics), but what takes it over the top is the arrangement. There are hooks all over the place.

[Packbat]

The bit where that initial chord progression doesn't feel like F is so fascinating. I wonder if another thing that helps that is the B-natural taking the progression out of F Ionian.

[Petch]

Even as a kid I new this song was special. It feels like we don't get songs like this anymore. But the truth is that songs as good as this are rare and on average there are only a few every year.
Thanks for sharing a new prospective of this song with me. ❤

[Tehom]

"The bass is the star" That's probably because originally the bass was all there was. The story goes that Cyndi Lauper's bass player was jamming by himself, and Cyndi overheard him and joined in, and that's how the song originated.
I assume it's the same bass player you mentioned; my source just says "her bass player" and not his name.

[donaldmilne]

Even back in my metal and prog focused youth (I still listen to that stuff, but I listen to other things too now) I knew this was qite special, but I did always secretly enjoy a really good piece of pop too, and this is one of the finest.

[theQUEENofLOSERS]

I had the 12 Deadly Cyns video tape with music videos and behind the scenes and Time After Time was on there. So beautiful. Thank you for this video!