Let’s keep it between us
These people meddlin’ in our affairs, they’re not our friends
Let’s keep it between us
Before doors close and our togetherness comes to an end
They’ll turn you against me and me against you
’Til we don’t know who to trust
Oh, darlin’, can we keep it between us?
This great song was only tried once in the studio – Santa Monica, October 1980. It was played at every show (19 times) during the “1980 A Musical Retrospective Tour”, debuted on November 9, 1980 & last performance was on December 4, 1980.
Rundown Studios
Santa Monica, California
October 1980
You mistreat me, baby, I can’t see no reason why
You know that I’d kill for you, and I’m not afraid to die
You treat me like a stepchild
Oh, Lordy, like a stepchild
I wanna turn my back and run away from you
but oh, I just can’t leave you babe
Interview – 2 December 1978 – Municipal Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee
–
Q: Do you do any new songs in concert now?
BD: Once in awhile we do some, yeah.
Q: How have they been responded to?
BD: Ah, fine.
Q: Will you be doing any tonight?
BD: We’ll probably do one or two, maybe one.
Q: What is your favorite one?
BD: Well, I don’t know if I’ll record it. But I have a song called “Baby, Am I Your Stepchild?”
Q: Is that different from a lot of the songs on Street Legal?
BD: No. Umm, content-wise, it’s not. It’s a more simplified version of, ah, just a man talking to a woman, who is just not treating him properly.
Am I Your Stepchild?
Words and music Bob Dylan
Played around 50 times during the fall 1978 tour, with constantly changing lyrics.
The air is getting hotter
There’s a rumbling in the skies
I’ve been wading through the high muddy water
With the heat rising in my eyes
Every day your memory grows dimmer
It doesn’t haunt me like it did before
I’ve been walking through the middle of nowhere
Trying to get to heaven before they close the door
Hall 4
Scottish Exhibition And Conference Center
Glasgow, Scotland
23 June 2004
Bob Dylan (vocal & piano)
Stu Kimball (guitar)
Larry Campbell (guitar, mandolin, pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, ’n’ how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, ’n’ how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
The Arena
Sheffield, England
23 June 1998
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
Bucky Baxter (pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
One of Dylan’s best love songs, co-written with backing singer Helena Springs. It was performed only once, at a concert in October 1978. It would be left to the Searchers to put it in the public domain.
-Clinton Heylin (The gems that Bob Dylan discarded – The Telegraph)
COMING FROM THE HEART (THE ROAD IS LONG)
Written by Bob Dylan & Helena Springs
Rundown Studios Santa Monica, California April 10, 1978 Rehearsals for the European Tour
