Songfacts®:

• This is the title track of Detour, Cyndi Lauper's first country music album. The song was originally recorded by Jimmy Walker in 1945. Tex Williams (in 1946) and Patti Page (in 1951) also released versions.
• Lauper explained to reporters that she named the album after this tune as it was the perfect way to explain the record to her loyal fans. "'Detour' came first, the song. And then I was thinking, 'Oh my God, what are you going to call the album? How are they going to know what it is? They're not going to know it's country,'" the songstress recalled. "I thought, 'It's another detour, Cyn. It's yet another detour.' Then I started getting all the crazy images in my head, with the sign and the road."
  
  Lauper added that the title is a good way to explain this stage of her life and career. "In life, there are many detours, but sometimes, they're not bad to take," she noted. "This was a good one."
• Another pop artist who made a detour into country music is Sheryl Crow. Her penultimate rock record release for A&M Records was titled Detours.