One of the few 'personal' songs Ewan wrote - it was one among a handful of others of s similar type he made when his life was going through a number of changes.
In my opinion, they are among his most sensitive songs and their personal nature are the reason they are nor sung as often as the rest of his output.
Paeggy wrote of it in '@The Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook":
"YOU AND I
(1977)
Except for the two or three occasions already mentioned in this book, Ewan and I were together twenty-four hours a day for thirty years. In 1977, I flew alone to the University of California at Berkeley to attend a festschrift that my father's colleagues were giving for him. I was away for ten days, during which time Ewan wrote a clutch of personal songs: "You and I," "Nobody Knew She Was There" and "My Old Man." Maybe I should I have gone away more often. At the same time he wrote a draft of "What the Poet Called I Her." Did he want to go away more often?
Jim Carroll