How Cyndi Lauper crafted ‘Time After Time’ in studio years before farewell tour: ‘What you’re hearing is almost first-take’

Cyndi Lauper was done — or so she thought — with her classic 1983 debut album “She’s So Unusual,” but something was missing to producer Rick Chertoff.

“Rick came in one day and said, ‘We could use one more song,’ ” Rob Hyman, who played keyboards on the LP, told The Post. “And I felt like, ‘One more song — you gotta be kidding!’ We were really spent.”

But after months of working tirelessly on the album that would turn the singer into a pop superstar, Hyman and Lauper came up with “Time After Time,” the bittersweet ballad that would become her first No. 1 hit 40 years ago — proving that this girl was as much about feels as fun.

“People tended to think, ‘Oh, she’s just kind of this fun pop singer,’ and she had such a unique voice with all the vocal ad libs and sounds she was putting on ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun,’ ” said Hyman. “And then you hear her sing something like ‘Time After Time,’ which is heartbreaking.”

Indeed, the second single off of “She’s So Unusual” would prove that the success of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” was no fluke — and that Lauper was an artist to be taken seriously. It cemented the groundwork for a legendary career that will see the New York native bring her “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” farewell tour to hometown arena, Madison Square Garden, on Wednesday night. 

Hyman was rocking with his own group, the Hooters, when he and bandmate Eric Bazilian were approached by Chertoff — a college friend from University of Pennsylvania — to play on Lauper’s debut LP.

“Cyndi and Rick were looking for musicians to kind of bring in a group feeling,” said Hyman. “Rick brought Cyndi to see the Hooters at the Bottom Line in New York … and the rest truly is history.”

After making the demos for “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” “She Bop,” “All Through the Night” and the rest of the album in Philadelphia — “We introduced her to cheesesteaks,” he said — they went to New York for the final studio sessions at the Record Plant. That’s where “Time After Time” was born in eleventh hour of recording.

“One night, everybody went out for dinner, and Cyndi and I stayed in the studio,” Hyman recalled. “She had a title, which was ‘Time after Time,’ which she came up with from a time-travel movie with Malcolm McDowell. And she said, ‘Hey, what about that?’

“And I sat at the piano, and I just started banging out ‘Time After Time.’ It was more of an uptempo kind of thing, had more of a bouncy feel, like a reggae groove. She would just kind of trance out on the music and dance around and just be moving in the studio.”

But the tune was stripped of its beats to reveal its beauty. “There was a fair amount of rhythm to it, and then it just slowed down,” said Hyman. “And then we started digging into the lyrics. And that’s when it transformed from this bouncy pop song to something deeper and more personal.”

In fact, the timeless love song was inspired by both of their own romantic entanglements.

“At the time, her relationship was with her manager, Dave Wolf,” said Hyman. “So that was tough to have a business relationship and a personal relationship. I had my own that was going on, and I think we kind of shared those thoughts.”

The tune came together far quicker than the rest of “She’s So Unusual.” “We were in the studio, so we went right to the track recording,” said Hyman. “I always say the record is the demo. What you’re hearing is almost first-take stuff.”

But Hyman’s harmonies that turn “Time After Time” into a virtual duet in the chorus were not originally planned for the record.

“I was singing this harmony with her, and it just had this vibe to it,” he said. “And I kind of thought, ‘Well, it’s a placeholder reference part.’ But I was thrilled that they wanted to keep it.”

When “Time After Time” was released as a single in March 1994, it was the perfect change-up after “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” “We were calling it the one-two punch,” said Hyman. “She wasn’t a one-hit wonder.”

The song was a critical success as well as a commercial one, earning a Song of the Year nomination at the 1985 Grammy Awards.

“And the competition was crazy: Phil Collins, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie. It was Tina Turner who did win [with] ‘What’s Love Got to Do with It.’ ”

Four decades later, Hyman and Lauper have been collaborating again on a musical adaptation of the 1988 film “Working Girl” — “I feel like it’s getting there,” he said — and “Time After Time” is still winning over hearts.

“We were following the muse that you follow,” he said. “And sometimes you get lucky.”