Paula Abdul is about to start performing a new round of dates in her Forever Your Girl Las Vegas residency, and you can be sure shell be incorporating her signature dance moves alongside the hits that made her famous, including Opposites Attract, Cold Hearted and Straight Up.

Those songs have been with Abdul for 31 years, appearing on her 1988 debut album, Forever Your Girl. At the time of its release, Abdul was already a successful dancer, choreographer and cheerleader. Although she didnt have experience as a singer and musical artist, she was eager to find a way to break in. Luckily, she found just the thing that would take her career to the next level.

But it almost didnt happen.

Abduls mom Lorraine, who worked in the film industry as an assistant to movie director Billy Wilder, had her own assistant whose boyfriend, musician and producer Elliot Wolff, had written a few songs.

My mothers young assistant walked up to my mother and said, Miss Abdul, my boyfriends an aspiring songwriter. And my mom said, Whos he written for? And she goes, Well, nobody thats notable yet, but can I submit a song from him? And my mom said, Sure, Abdul recalled in an interview with HuffPost at Build Series .

Shortly after that, Abdul made her weekly visit to her parents house for chicken and Rice-a-Roni. Her mom told her about Wolffs demo, calling it the most God-awful thing youve ever heard. Still, her mom played Abdul the cassette.

It was like an eight-track recording with someone plunking on a computer and singing notes that Ive never heard of, like in-between notes. It was strange. We were laughing and crying, and my mother threw it in the trash can. And I dug it out of the trash can and said, Theres something really cool about this song.

That song was Straight Up.