[Intro:]
Dsus4/g D Em C
Dsus4/g D Em C
G D Em .
C . . .
Dsus4/g . . .
Bb(add9)
In the night I hear you speak
Dsus4/g
Turn around, you're in my sleep
Bb(add9)
Feel your hands inside your soul
Dsus4/g
You're holding on and won't let go
Em C
I've tried running but there's no escape
Em Am7 C D
Can't bend them, and (I know) I just can't break these...
G D Em C Steel bars, wrapped all around me G D Em C I've been your prisoner since the day you found me G D Am I'm bound forever, till the end of time C G Steel bars wrapped around this heart of mine
Trying hard to recognize See the face behind the eyes Feel your haunting ways like chains 'Round my heart they still remain I'm still running, but there's nowhere to hide My love for you has got me locked up inside these...
Steel bars, wrapped all around me I've been your prisoner since the day you found me I'm bound forever, till the end of time Steel bars wrapped around this heart of mine
Bm
And with every step I take
Every desperate move I make
G
It's clear to me
Bm
What can all my living mean
C
When time itself is so obscene
Am
When time itself don't mean a thing
D
I'm still loving you
[ a cappella, choir:] Steel bars, wrapped all around me I've been your prisoner since the day you found me I'm bound forever, till the end of time...
(Then the key change…..)
Ab Eb Fm Db Steel bars, wrapped all around me Ab Eb Fm Db I've been your prisoner since the day you found me Ab Eb Bbm I'm bound forever, till the end of time Db Steel bars [repeat and fade]
How did this unlikely collaboration come about? The following is from a posting to rec.music.dylan by Olof Bjorner on 16 May 1991:
Michael Bolton: We’re planning on writing some more songs together. He’s kind of hungry to get back out there and wants to work with a few contemporary hit song writers. Someone who works with Dylan called me up and said ‘Bob Dylan would like to write with you’. I was awed. I told him, ‘I don’t even know how I could write a lyric when working with you … I’m too intimidated’. But then we started messing around with some chords and wrote Steel Bars, a song about obsession. It took us two sessions to write, and when I left, I was told, ‘Bob likes you and he wants you to come back’.