About The Song
Nestled outside the Rocky Mountain community of Nederland, twenty miles from Denver, Colorado, the Caribou Ranch once included a unique recording facility. Owned by former Chicago producer James Guercio (who founded Country Music Television), the ranch provided artists and musicians with a quiet, secluded environment, affording them a chance to focus on their work with a minimal number of distractions. Several cabins were located close to the recording studio, where the performers, musicians and accompanying personnel set up quarters for the period of time it would take to complete their projects. Caribou yielded such successful albums as “Chicago X,” Elton John’s “Caribou,” Dan Fogelberg’s “Nether Lands” and Eddie Rabbitt’s 1981 album “Step By Step.”
Each morning before their noon session, Rabbitt and producer David Malloy would head over to Even Stevens’ cabin. Protected from the snow and cold, they’d light a big fire and Stevens would cook breakfast while Eddie and David mapped out the day’s work schedule. Rabbitt had thirty songs prepared for the album and four or five were already completed as they ended the first of their two weeks at Caribou. At that time, they came up with “Step By Step’s” title track.
The song grew out of a comic routine. The Three Stooges had done a bit (later reprised on “I Love Lucy’) in which a man goes crazy and kills someone every time he hears his ex-wife’s name. Of course, the name is mentioned several times during the skit, and each time, the man turns into a murderous lunatic, intoning the words “Slowly I turn, step by step, inch by inch…..” For some reason, Malloy had that old routine on his mind that morning. He culled the phrase “step by step” out of it and told Rabbitt and Stevens that he believed he had just come up with a smash title.
The three men ate their breakfast, then proceeded to write, in about half an hour, a song that would become Eddie Rabbitt’s fourth consecutive #1 country hit (and eighth overall), reaching the summit on October 17, 1981. That same week, “Step By Step” peaked at #5 on Billboard’s Hot 100 pop chart, making Eddie the only country star to reach the pop Top Five with three singles in a row during the 1980s (the other two were “Driving My Life Away” and “I Love A Rainy Night”). “Step By Step” was also the first country video aired by MTV.
Video
Lyric
First step, find a girl to love
Second step, get a big old diamond ring
Third step, take her in your arms and never let her go
‘Cause step by step, my dreams come trueStep by step, I’m getting closer to you
Every move I make, every single night and day
Step by step, my dreams come trueFourth step, tell her that you love her
Fifth step, hold her when she cries
Sixth step, thank the Lord above for sending her to you
‘Cause step by step, my dreams come trueStep by step, I’m getting closer to you
Every move I make, every single night and day
Step by step, my dreams come trueStep by step, I’m getting closer to you
Every move I make, every single night and day
Step by step, my dreams come true