Though Cyndi Lauper is much more than a one-hit wonder, her sudden stardom in 1984 made the subsequent lack of fireworks in her career seem as if she'd put everything she had into her debut album, "She's so Unusual." It's not entirely true, but in any case that LP went platinum five times in the United States. alone and spawned four Top 5 singles, which was a record at the time for an album by a female singer.

"Time After Time" was the only one of those singles to hit No. 1 in the U.S. and the only ballad on the album. On April 27, the music-documentary show "Soshite Ongaku ga Hajimaru (And The Music Begins)" (TV Tokyo, 10:54 p.m.) will focus on that one song: how it was written; how it was recorded; and the cultural context that made it a lasting hit.

Lauper has said that "Time After Time" is the most personal song on the album, most of which was written by other people. The song is autobiographical in a metaphorical way. Lauper, who was 31 when she made "She's so Unusual," had been a bar singer since she'd dropped out of high school and had already declared bankruptcy when her band Blue Angel fell apart in the early '80s. Raised in Queens and Brooklyn by a single mother, she was always an awkward girl, picked on by her peers. Only her mother understood her, and she pays tribute to her in the video of the song, in which a girl leaves a small town to pursue her dreams.