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def leppard / Two Steps Behind UK Single Chart Peak

on this day - 25th September 1993

On this day in Def Leppard history the 'Two Steps Behind' single peaked at Number 32 in the UK.
The first single to be taken from the 'Retro-Active' album.

Def Leppard 1993.

"I wrote this song called Two Steps Behind in 1989."


Def Leppard 1993.

This section looks at the 'Two Steps Behind' UK single chart peak. The first of two UK singles from the 'Retro-Active' album.


"Our first recorded acoustic performance!."

Def Leppard's classic Two Steps Behind single reached Number 32 in the UK on this day in 1993.

The first single to be released from the Retro-Active album.

It was released on 6th September 1993 having already been issued on 24th August 1993 in the USA.

The single had entered at Number 35 on 18th September and rose to its peak of 32 the week after on this date.

A further two weeks were spent on the Top 100 chart.

Unlike most of the five 'Adrenalize' singles released in 1992/1993, the band were not in the UK to be able to promote the song.

This and the lack of TV appearances meant it did not chart highly.

Read more about this song.


Def Leppard 1993.



Def Leppard 1993.

UK Singles Chart - 25th September 1993

  • 01 - DJ Jazzy Jeff And The Fresh Prince - Boom! Shake The Room
  • 02 - Pet Shop Boys - Go West
  • 03 - Culture Beat - Mr. Vain
  • 04 - M People - Moving On Up
  • 05 - SMV - Right Here
  • 32 - Def Leppard - Two Steps Behind
Def Leppard 1993. Def Leppard 1993

The new version featured added strings by composer Michael Kamen and had been given to the film company by the band when they requested a song to use.

The song had started out life in 1989 as an electric ballad (also included on 'Retro-Active') during the 'Adrenalize' album sessions with Phil Collen later suggesting they record it as an acoustic version.

It was one of three songs that were released as extra tracks on the Make Love Like A Man CD single in June 1992 (along with 'Miss You In A Heartbeat' and 'Action') which would be adapted and used as the three singles from 'Retro-Active' in 1993/1994.

It was performed in public for the first time at a radio station in Madrid, Spain on 21st January 1993 and then made its full concert debut at the 6th June 1993 Don Valley stadium show in Sheffield.

Read more about this song below.





Joe Elliott - September 1993 MTV Interview Quotes

"I wrote this song called Two Steps Behind in 1989 and I demoed it myself one weekend when we were having a break. The engineer for the Adrenalize album. The assistant engineer, a guy called Pete Woodroffe, who's actually engineering and mixing the Retro-Active album."

"He stayed for the weekend in Dublin and we went in and recorded this song with me playing all the instruments just to demo it. And I always thought it was a cool song but we'd kind of already decided what songs were going on the Adrenalize album by then. But I thought I'd do it anyway and it could always come in handy as a B Side."

"So anyway time passes. It sat on the shelf for the best part of two and a half years and we were running out of songs to do for B Sides. We knew we wanted B Sides. We didn't want to put tracks off the album out as B Sides. So we'd already done this acoustic session with some friends of ours called the Hothouse Flowers. And that kind of got us in this mood to do acoustic stuff."


Def Leppard 1993.


Two Steps Behind 1993.

"And I think it might have been Phil, when I suggested why don't we do Two Steps Behind as a B Side, he says why don't we do an acoustic version of it because we still had all the acoustic stuff in the studio. So I said OK you know we were so desperate for songs we were just doing anything we could do."

"So I said fine let's do the acoustic version of Two Steps and we worked it out, learnt it, sat down and recorded the whole thing in a couple of hours. Mixed it the next day and bang, there it was. And it came out as the fourth track on a CD single. For Make Love Like A Man I believe it was. But it was never released anywhere else in the world. It only came out in England."

"So it was basically a virgin song to everywhere else in the world. And then it got picked up for the Last Action Hero soundtrack. And when we started piecing this album (Retro-Active) together we just thought it would be really cool idea now we've got the acoustic version to have the absolute opposite to that and dig out the electric one again."


Crossroads 2008 - Joe Elliott Quote

"This is a song that was written about 1989 and sat on a shelf going rusty until one day Phil suggested that we take this song, which was originally done as like a big electric ballad like Love Bites or Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad. And he said let's just do it as an acoustic song. And we did it in about three hours and it sat around as a B Side for about a year."

"And then some guys in Hollywood said they needed a song for a movie called Last Action Hero. And they heard the song and they said we'd like this one please. So long story short they took it and they gave us a nice little hit out of a song that we had no idea was ever gonna be as popular as it's become. This is a little thing for ya called Two Steps Behind."


Def Leppard 1993.


Have You Ever 1992.

June 2005 - Band Members Quotes

Joe Elliott

"It had been a demo in electric form. Phil suggested we record it acoustically as a b-side. Michael Kamen put a string arrangement on it. And nine months later it appeared in Last Action Hero. It became a number one hit in several countries."

Phil Collen

"I’m not a great lover of ballads. Slow songs are easier to write. But I don’t really like playing them live. Originally it was an electric song. But it was refreshing to do it acoustically and to record it in pretty much a single take."

Vivian Campbell

"Probably the first song I worked on after joining. One night over at Joe’s studio. The playing is really, really loose. The backing vocals are also well ropey - not at all what you’d expect from a band like Leppard. But in a way that was it’s charm. I like it because it’s acoustic. I think it was the first time the band had done anything like that."

Vault Greatest Hits Album Quotes - October 1995

Phil Collen

"Recorded live in one night. A B Side, then a hit, lovely!."

Rick Savage

"Pete (Woodroffe), our co-producer, promised to quit if it became a hit. We're still waiting, Pete."

Make Love Like A Man - June 1992 Single Quote

"'Two Steps Behind' is an Elliott composition performed totally acoustically - bass, 2 guitars and voice. Our first recorded acoustic performance!"


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