The ballad is about coming home for the first time without a partner being there after a break up. The video clip is also about this, with Lauper coming home after a long day at work to an empty room after a separation. The song was written by Lauper, Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. The latter two also wrote "True Colors" and "I Drove All Night".
Its B-side was "Unabbreviated Love". The song is a fan favorite; Lauper performed it many times on her A Night to Remember tour in 1989.[citation needed]
To promote the single, promotional posters were sent to different malls and music stores that sold the single when it was originally released.
The single failed to make a big impact on most global charts. It did do moderately well in Chile however. And also, it achieved #1 in the Radio Cidade from São Paulo, Brazil. In Colombia, the single was #1 for 10 weeks.[citation needed]
Music video
The video for "My First Night Without You", released in 1989, was one of the first to be closed-captioned for the hearing impaired.[1]