Songfacts®:

• New Kids On The Block were still hangin' tough when they released "Step By Step," the lead single and title track to their fourth album, in 1990. Written by their producer, Maurice Starr, the song is aimed right at their target audience of teenage girls, with the Kids singing about how their going to win over the lady step by step. It was their third #1 hit, but also their last. Their next single, "Tonight," was a solid hit and they had a successful tour in 1991, but then their popularity waned. When they released the single "If You Go Away" late that year, they re-branded as NKOTB.
• Maurice Starr wrote this song in 1986 and first recorded it with another group he was working with, a Black boy band called The Superiors. Their original version was released on Motown Records in 1987 and went nowhere, so Starr resurrected it for the New Kids three years later.
• Maurice Starr wrote this song quickly when The Superiors had a session booked and needed material. He played some notes on a keyboard that sounded like steps, so he made that the lyrical theme.
• Jordan Knight sings lead on this one, but in the bridge, each member gets a line detailing each step. They are:
  
  Danny Wood: Step 1, we can have lots of fun
  Donnie Wahlberg: Step 2, there's so much we can do
  Jordan Knight: Step 3, it's just you and me
  Joey McIntyre: Step 4, I can give you more
  Jonathan Knight: Step 5, don't you know that the time has arrived
• After the Step By Step album, the New Kids put out a remix album, did a lot of touring, then slowed down. They didn't put out another original album until Face The Music in 1994, their first without Maurice Starr producing. By then, New Kids mania had long passed and it got little notice. They next wave of boy bands, led by Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync, appeared a few years later.