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ONE STEP UP

Woke up this morning my house was cold
Checked out the furnace she wasn't burnin'
Went out and hopped in my old Ford
Hit the engine but she ain't turnin'
We've given each other some hard lessons lately
But we ain't learnin'
We're the same sad story that's a fact
One step up and two steps back

Bird on a wire outside my motel room
But he ain't singin'
Girl in white outside a church in June
But the church bells they ain't ringing
I'm sittin' here in this bar tonight
But all I'm thinkin' is
I'm the same old story same old act
One step up and two steps back

It's the same thing night on night
Who's wrong baby who's right
Another fight and I slam the door on
Another battle in our dirty little war
When I look at myself I don't see
The man I wanted to be
Somewhere along the line I slipped off track
I'm caught movin' one step up and two steps back

There's a girl across the bar
I get the message she's sendin'
Mmm she ain't lookin' to married
And me well honey I'm pretending
Last night I dreamed I held you in my arms
The music was never-ending
We danced as the evening sky faded to black
One step up and two steps back

Published on Tunnel Of Love and played in that tour.

Covered by Seldom Scene on their 2000 album Scene It All.

Included on singles in 1988, 1992, and 1996 with ROULETTE, LUCKY MAN, IF I SHOULD FALL BEHIND, MEETING ACROSS THE RIVER, THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD, NEBRASKA, and others...

Available on:

  1. Tunnel Of Love (track 10)
  2. Tribute 1997: One Step Up / Two Steps Back: The Songs Of Bruce Springsteen (disc 1- track 14), performed by Paul Cebar

Liner notes from the One Step Up / Two Steps Back: The Songs Of Bruce Springsteen tribute booklet:

The ensemble sound of The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle has long held fascination for me and I daresay has exerted considerable influence upon what the various bands I've been involved with and/or assembled have sounded like. The doors implied in that music have opened up my listening to many large configurations. Over the past 15 years the music of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America have loomed large in my quest for the moral equivalent of Stax/Volt, Motown, Chicago Soul and New Orleans rhumba. I've been particularly fascinated with the tres and its role in the music of Cuba. In our take on "One Step Up" tres in Las Estressas De Chocolate, nod to Sonny Federici, deepen the partner dance metaphor of the lyric and give our percussionist the rope to weave something worthy to wrap limbs around.

-Paul Cebar