"Downtown Train" is a song by Tom Waits

Tom Waits

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...

 released on his album Rain Dogs

Rain Dogs

Rain Dogs is the 9th album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, released in August 1985 on Island Records. A loose concept album about "the urban dispossessed" of New York City, Rain Dogs is generally considered the middle album of a trilogy that includes Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild...

in 1985.

The promo video for the song was directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino

Jean-Baptiste Mondino

Jean-Baptiste Mondino is a French fashion photographer and music video director. He has directed music videos for Madonna, David Bowie, Sting, Björk, Neneh Cherry and Les Rita Mitsouko...

 and features the boxer Jake LaMotta

Jake LaMotta

Giacobbe LaMotta , better known as Jake LaMotta, nicknamed "The Bronx Bull" and "The Raging Bull", is a former American world middleweight champion boxer...

.

Rod Stewart

Rod Stewart

Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....

 recorded a cover version

Cover version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

 that became a #3 hit on the Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 chart after being released as a single in late 1989, and was also a number-one single on the album rock and adult contemporary charts

Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks

The Adult Contemporary chart is a weekly chart published in Billboard magazine that lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary and "lite-pop" radio stations in the United States...

. The song went to number-one in Canada and made the top ten on the UK Singles Chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

 in 1990. Stewart also received a Grammy

Grammy Award

A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

 nomination for the song in the category Best Male Pop Vocal performance

Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance

The Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance was awarded between 1966 and 2011...

. Stewart's cover featured the slide guitar

Slide guitar

Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...

 playing of Jeff Beck

Jeff Beck

Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds...

, who also appeared on the music video

Music video

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

.

Other artists who have covered "Downtown Train" include Mary Chapin Carpenter

Mary Chapin Carpenter

Mary Chapin Carpenter is an American folk and country music artist. Carpenter spent several years singing in Washington, D.C. clubs before signing in the late 1980s with Columbia Records, who marketed her as a country singer...

, who included it on her debut album Hometown Girl

Hometown Girl

Hometown Girl is the debut album from American country music artist Mary Chapin Carpenter. It was released on July 30, 1987 on Columbia Records. The album did not produce any chart singles...

in 1987; and Patty Smyth

Patty Smyth

Patty Smyth is an American rock and roll musician. She first enjoyed mainstream success in 1982 as lead singer of the band Scandal and later scored a solo #2 hit with her song "Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough"...

, who released a version that same year that reached #95 on the Billboard Hot 100. Everything But the Girl

Everything but the Girl

Everything but the Girl was a two-person English band, formed in Hull during 1981, consisting of lead singer and occasional guitarist Tracey Thorn and guitarist, keyboardist, and singer Ben Watt . They are currently inactive although vocalist Tracey Thorn hinted that they may reform someday...

 also produced an acoustic cover of the song. Bob Seger

Bob Seger

Robert Clark "Bob" Seger is an American rock and roll singer-songwriter, guitarist and pianist.As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded as Bob Seger and the Last Heard and Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s...

 also recorded a cover version of "Downtown Train" in 1989, but he opted not to release it because Stewart's version had been released earlier. On February 28, 2011, Seger finally released his version of the song as a single, which is also part of the retrospective album Ultimate Hits: Rock and Roll Never Forgets

Ultimate Hits: Rock and Roll Never Forgets

Ultimate Hits: Rock and Roll Never Forgets is a compilation album by American rock singer–songwriter Bob Seger. The double-disc album was released on November 21, 2011 and contains 26 remastered tracks from throughout Seger's career, which spans more than four decades...

. The German band The Piano Has Been Trinking included a version of Downtown Train (Rude Jolf) on their 1990 album The Piano Has Been Trinking which only consists of cover versions of Tom Waits songs in Kölsch dialect (Colognian).

The Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 artist Moneybrother released a Swedish version of the song; it is included on his album Pengabrorsan. Austrian hardcore/punk band Rentokill recorded a cover of the track for their 2009 EP The O.S.E.

Patty Smyth version

Chart (1987)	Peak position
US Billboard Hot 100 Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...	95
US Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks	40

Rod Stewart version

Chart (1989-1990)	Peak position
Canadian Singles Chart Canadian Singles Chart The Canadian Singles Chart is currently compiled by the U.S.-based music sales tracking company, Nielsen SoundScan . The chart is compiled every Wednesday, and is published by Jam! Canoe on Thursdays....	1
German Singles Chart Media Control Charts The official music charts in Germany are gathered and published by the company Media Control GfK International on behalf of Bundesverband Musikindustrie...	39
Irish Singles Chart Irish Singles Chart The Irish Singles Chart is Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on behalf of the IRMA by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured...	13
Dutch Single Chart MegaCharts MegaCharts is responsible for the composition and exploitation of a broad collection of official charts in the Netherlands, of which the Mega Top 50 and the Mega Album Top 100 are the most known ones. Mega Charts also provides information to the Stichting Nederlandse Top 40, of which the Dutch Top...	42
New Zealand Singles Chart	30
UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...	10
US Billboard Hot 100 Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...	3
US Billboard Adult Contemporary	1
US Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks	1

Bob Seger version

>

Chart (2011)	Peak position

See also

• List of RPM number-one singles of 1990
• List of number-one adult contemporary singles of 1990 (U.S.)
• List of number-one mainstream rock hits (United States)

External links

• [ AllMusic.com track review]