Cigarettes weren't Eddie Rabbitt's only addiction.

For those who remember Eddie Rabbitt, the popular country singer who died of lung cancer in 1998, who could forget "Step By Step," his 1981 smash crossover hit? The lyrics were comprised of a brilliant philosophical treatise on romance and foolproof directions on how to woo any member of the fairer sex. This surefire path to romantic and physical bliss was meticulously yet plainly laid out in language that any cretin could understand. All of that, and a catchy, kick-ass melody to boot! It was later statistically proven by a team of Harvard University researchers that in 1981 and 1982 (before the song faded from collective memory), no man who heard this song, and who was so inclined, went unmarried.

However, the shocking truth about this musical gem was recently discovered when one of Eddie's children found a notebook inside a dusty trunk in the family attic. The original intent of the song, it turns out, was to put forth an outline not for capturing a woman's heart, but for snagging a chick's ice cream cone. Written under the working title "You'll Get Her Cone," the song reveals just how much Eddie himself was hitting the cone at the time.

"We knew he had a heaping bowl of Breyer's Vanilla Fudge Twirl ice cream after every meal," one of his sons remembers, "but we never realized the full extent of the problem." Kevin Beagle, Eddie's longtime friend and manager, however, was privy to some of the darker moments. "I remember coming into his dressing room right before a concert," Kevin recalls. "The lights were all off and I heard this grunting noise coming from the closet. I flipped on the light and there was Eddie, crouched in the corner, his hair disheveled, chocolate smeared all over his goddamn beard, spoon in hand, and a big salad bowl full of sludgy, melting ice cream in his lap." Kevin also tells of a frightening moment in which Eddie, in the midst of a "cream frenzy," was on the verge of changing his first name to "Edy." "The guy was a mess," says Kevin.

In fact, it was Kevin who helped Eddie pull his life back together, and the process began with a rewrite of "Step By Step." "The tune was rockin'," Kevin says. "We knew it was gonna capture the top of the pop and country charts like all of Eddie's big ones did. But the lyrics, they just weren't happening." Kevin says he had to keep on Eddie "like a hound on a hare" until he came up with the lyrics we know and love today.

"It was hard as hell to make Eddie see it," Kevin adds, "but there's just no universal appeal to ice cream."

You take that first step,
ask her out and treat her to a Blizzard/

Second step,
ask her what she'd do for a Klondike Bar/

Third step,
tell her you think she's had too much Edy's and maybe she'd better go/

Don't you know step by step/

Step by step/

You'll get her cone

© 2003 jOhn A. productions

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