Rod Stewart: ”Downtown Train” (with Rich Terfry)

We are thrilled to have Rich Terfry join us for this episode. Rich has been the host of CBC Radio 2's "Drive" since 2008. Besides his work for CBC Music, Rich is a published author who is also known as Buck 65 - a Juno-winning alternative hip hop artist. Today we examine Rod Stewart's glorious cover of Tom Waits' "Downtown Train."

Links:

Our Mixtape

Tom Waits Original

Rod Stewart Version

Patty Smythe Version

Bob Seeger Version

Boy Meets Girl Version

Buck 65 Bandcamp Page

You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Masadon, and our website. You can email us at BandFGuiltFree@gmail.com, too.

Here is our Spotify playlist featuring every song we've featured.

Our theme music is by the incredibly talented Ian McGlynn.

 

Transcript (best read on our website)

 

Intro Music

Frank:
[0:22] So today on Bill and Frank's Guilt-Free Pleasures, we have a Chicken or the Egg song. Was it Downtown Train that inspired Rod Stewart's love of model trains? Or was it his love of model trains that inspired him to cover this song? That's what we're kind of looking at a little bit.
Well, not at all, but that's a it's a philosophical question that that I believe needs to be asked.
And also today we're really excited to have a guest with us today, Rich Terfry who some of you may know from CBC Radio 1. 

Rich Terfry:
[0:59] Radio 2, CBC Music as we refer to it now.

Frank:
[1:07] Radio 2. Yes, sorry. Yeah. So Rich Terfry has been good enough to join us today and talk about this song. And I know that you're on the radio and everything,

but I can tell you're a little bit intimidated with our $25 mic stands and our towels for soundproofing, but we encourage you just to be yourself here today.

Rich Terfry:
[1:23] Sorry, yeah.

[1:23] I'll do my best. This is much nicer than my setup at work here, so.

Frank:
[1:27] I'm not saying a whole lot for CBC are we?
So yeah today we're looking at Downtown Train by Rod Stewart but before we talk about Downtown Train by Rod Stewart, we need to talk about Downtown Train by Tom Waits, because he was the guy that wrote the song and originally recorded it back in 1985.

Bill:
[1:49] Right, and that was on his Rain Dogs album, which is his most popular album, at least until... It's hard to tell...

Frank:
[1:57] And at least until Scarlett Johansson did her cover album, right?

Bill:
[2:00] Right, right, right.

Rich Terfry:
[2:01] Certainly a classic. Yeah. And often when people talk, Tom Waits, one of if not the first album that tends to come up in conversation.

Frank:
[2:12] I think it's probably maybe the most accessible. Maybe so. Yeah.

Rich Terfry:
[2:15] Maybe so.

Bill:
[2:16] Our friend Eric Stewart, no relation to Rod, sent, I asked him, I sent him a text far too

Bill:
[2:24] late last night asking why he's a big Tom Waits fan and asked him to tell me
why Downtown Train works so well on Rain Dogs and he said I think because in the
first three quarters of the album he makes the listener work so hard to find
the melody that when you finally get to something that's even close to a radio song it comes as a relief. Consonance is only pleasing in the
presence of dissonance.

Frank:
[2:49] I understood 70% of those words.

Rich Terfry:
[2:52] Yeah, I think the simple way to put it is that Rain Dogs is kind of a weird record. And then in a strange way, Downtown Train is a sore thumb.
Because all of a sudden, here's like a pretty straight up standard, you know, good old structured pop song in the midst of all this weirdness.

Bill:
[3:39] There's talk that this was sort of like rock star bait, that there's rumors that Tom Waits had finally got his publishing to himself, and that they said that this song was put out there to sort of um... Lure. Yes.

Rich Terfry:
[3:51] Lure a bigger artist to, you know, specifically for the purpose of covering it.

Bill:
[3:59] Yeah. And allowing him to take some time off. Apparently the cover, one version I read was that allowed Tom Waits to take a couple years off to raise his kids.
Yeah. Rod Stewart's version is it put in a pool. That's about to be quite a pool if it's 1989 royalties, I would think.

Frank:
[4:10] Yeah, I just thought it was, yeah.

Rich Terfry:
[4:38] So I've read a few Tom Waits biographies, none of which he kind of participated in the writing of, because I don't think that's really what he does.
But some people very close to him believe that, that he was really doing that, that he was specifically trying to create cover bait, basically, with this song, and maybe a few others that he's written.
Just, you know, throw in the potential hits out there, just waiting for someone to take the bait and make them some money.

Bill:
[5:10] If Rod Stewart wants to cover one of our podcasts...

Frank:
[5:12] Hey, put on American songbook like 47 or whatever he's on right now.

Rich Terfry:
[5:19] But don't forget, you know, Tom Waits,
so the first chapter, if you will, of his career was very different from where he ended up in the 80s with this trilogy of records.
Really, right? People talk about rain dogs, Swordfish Trombones and Frank's Wild Years is sort of a trilogy where he
really started to experiment, started to become the guy that ultimately he became and sort of is now. But before that in the 70s, although it was still a
little different from you know kind of what might have been on the pop charts,
he was more of a songsmith less the experimenter back then. So he had this in
He knew how to write a song. Always did, I would say.

Bill:
[6:05] And so you have Bob Seeger hearing this and saying, this is my ticket.

Frank:
[6:11] Before that, Patty Smythe did a cover of it too. She covered and recorded and released it in 87.

Bill:
[6:14] Oh yeah, yeah you're right.

Frank:
[6:19] It made it on the charts, I think it charted at 93.
Of all the covers that I've heard, I'm gonna say that hers is my favorite.

Bill:
[6:28] That's tough for you, because I know Rod Stewart means so much.

Frank:
[6:33] He has a big spot in my heart.

[6:59] Then that brings up the whole Bob Seeger controversy, right? So the story that I read anyways was that Bob Seeger recorded the song and he was gonna
record an entire album surrounding the song and that was his idea and he played it for Rod Stewart and then like a month after that Rod Stewart just recorded Downtown Train just as a one off to add on to a greatest hits compilation.

Rich Terfry:
[7:30] And managed to release it before Bob Seeger was able to.

Frank:
[7:34] Yeah, so Bob's like laboring on this entire album, which is
built around Downtown Train. And Rod's just like, Here's a one off and I'm going to release it on my on my greatest hits here.
So I don't know, like, so it caused a rift between the two them because they were friends and now they're foes.

Rich Terfry:
[7:54] Yeah, they say Bob Seeger was genuinely ticked,
and kind of felt like Rod Stewart's move kind of ruined it for him.

Frank:
[8:02] Yeah, yeah.

Bill:
[8:03] And it was the end of Seeger's had this big run until around 87, 88, I think. He actually scored a number one, the song called Shakedown on the Beverly Hills Cop 2 soundtrack.

Frank:
[8:14] Oh, yeah, that's right.

Bill:
[8:15] And it looked like, how is that number one? I remember hearing, I thought it was one of those awful throw offs they put on movie soundtracks. Or like, okay, there's one song like Shakedown, who's that? You know, as a kid, but I guess it went to number one.
I should probably re-listen to it. But he was seeing Downtown Train, I think, either as a transition or like as,
a big move for him as an artist. The story I heard is he told Rod Stewart about the song but hadn't
played it for him and get this he told to him on a train.

Rich Terfry:
[8:44] The plot thickens.
Thanks for watching!

Bill:
[8:47] And then yeah now Rod Stewart's version and I I kind of believe him he's like oh I don't remember.

Frank:
[8:47] Layers upon layers.

Bill:
[8:53] That and it's believable to me that Bob Seeger might have been pouring out his heart and Rod Stewart at this stage of his life might not have been paying close attention, but he's
got a lot of women coming in and out of different rooms and his autobiography sound like he was quite a wild man even at his age then.

Frank:
[9:12] Well, yeah.

Bill:
[9:13] Here's the tough part. Rod Stewart was 44 years old when he recorded this.

Frank:
[9:20] Okay.

Bill:
[9:20] We are 45.

Frank:
[9:23] I've missed my downtown train year.

Bill:
[9:26] You did, and  Rod Stewart, by the time he was doing Downton Train, had a whole entire career.

Frank:
[9:31] Yeah, I've had a career. I've had a number of careers. and just keep losing them because of gross incompetence.

Bill:
[9:32] Are we familiar with the story of how Rod Stewart claims that he heard the song for the first time?

Rich Terfry:
[9:38] I don't know if I am either.

Bill:

[9:49] Well, I got it from his autobiography and some mean-spirited writer online said "his autobiography"  or "whoever wrote his autobiography."
He was just saying he didn't write his autobiography.

Frank:
[10:04] Well Rod Stewart doesn't write his own songs either so why would he write his autobiography?

Bill:
[10:09] Well, he did. He can write a song.

Frank:
[10:10] He can write his own songs. No, he can.

Bill:
[10:11] This is the great.
I guess this this sort of marked a moment where he changed directions a bit.
At least they talk about this. I'll just retell it.
I was gonna read it, then I realized it's too long.
So his manager came in, I think it was his manager, came in with a tape player.
So this is 1989. Plays Tom Waits, Downtown Train for him. And he says to Rod Stewart, holds his hand up and says, don't speak.
Plays it. Rod Stewart is listening. Plays the whole entire Downtown Train. Tom Waits stops it. And then he says, don't speak. And he plays it again.
Third time. Don't speak. plays it again now Rod Stewart is singing along with it he's like I want this the song has become mine or I want to sing this song and I want to put it
on the album but he's saying that's the first time he heard of the song so of,
course Bob Seeger's like we talked about this on the train but Rod Stewart.

Frank:
[11:01] The train. That all makes sense now. Models, model trains, trains. There's a Venn diagram for Rod Stewart's life.

Bill:
[11:03] Might have been thinking model trains or models in general and so was yeah yeah.

[11:11] Well this is the perfect song for him. Rod Stewart said his eight-year-old son

Rich Terfry:
[11:15] Yeah.

Bill:
[11:17] came into the room and says, what was that awful sound? Who is that guy singing? And Rod Stewart would say, well, Tom Wait's voice, although he loves Tom Wait's voice, this is an acquired taste.

Frank:
[11:28] Yeah. It's kind of, it's a pop voice.

Bill:
[11:28] Whereas Rod Stewart's is like a mild coffee.

Rich Terfry:
[11:35] Both got a bit of whether you'd call it gravel or gruff or scratchiness though, there is a quality to a degree, you know, Tom Waits is kind of cranked up to 11 but.

Frank:
[11:49] Yeah, yeah. Tom Waits is like a coal fire.

Rich Terfry:
[11:51] You're right. And you could argue that at least, you know, at times in his catalog that Bob Seeger dabbled in a little bit of that as well.
and so I've wondered if I don't know the question popped into my to my head when
you know Tom Waits is lay in this trap was he thinking specifically like you know I'll set this one out there for the gravelly voiced bros wait till they hear.

Frank:
[12:20] Yeah, because because at that, because at the time, like that would be 85. Right? So like Bruce Springsteen is a huge popularity. And then just follow the road down there was.

Rich Terfry:
[12:22] This.

Frank:
[12:31] Springsteen, Brian Adams, Rod Stewart, like they all have that,
sort of gruffness in their voice.

Rich Terfry:
[12:38] They hear Tom Waits and think I can shine this up just enough.

Frank:
[12:41] Yeah, Tom Waits, the godfather of gravel.

Rich Terfry:
[12:44] Yeah. Yeah.

Bill:
[12:45] And the Destroyer of Friendships, I guess too. Because if he hadn't put that out, maybe Bob Seeger would still be buddies with Rod.

Frank:
[12:48] Oh, yeah.

[12:52] They recorded an album Rod and Bob.

Rich Terfry:
[12:54] That was good. Yeah.

Bill:
[12:58] All right, so we got this. This is released on his Storytellers album, The Greatest Hits. So I thought I kept looking for it on an album. They released a demo of it, or an early version of this on his Vagabond album from 91, the Deluxe edition.
It's actually surprisingly different in a way that it sounded a little closer to Tom,
Waits. Yeah, Rodster's, yeah, his voice was like, he had a bit more rasp, but it was like phlegmy.

Rich Terfry:
[13:22] There's no way I can do that.

Bill:
[13:29] Rasp which really disgusted me. As I listened to it, I realized I do have issues.
Clear that comes up. Yeah, yeah, I turn the taps on if someone's using a bathroom too close to me. So it's a.

[14:12] So his early version actually sounded closer to Waits or at least it seemed like something that he would been used to the Tom Waits version And then maybe was still in that zone, but then I don't not sure how much Trevor Horn had to I mean, he's the producer,
But he takes it and brings it into full rod or at least full late 80s rod. Yeah.

Frank:
[14:32] Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah, what's a Oh, that's right. Yeah, he was on we talked about what the do they know it's Christmas.

Bill:
[14:34] We've talked Trevor Horn before He's the guy in the bugles with the thick glasses?

Frank:
[14:44] Right? Yeah. So, and researching the song. Yeah, you're looking you're looking Rod Stewart does his version and the,
guy playing the slide guitar is Jeff Beck on this version and I diving like back deeper as far as Wikipedia was gonna take me I didn't
know that Rod Stewart played with Jeff Beck like post yard birds no is before faces let me find it here oh yeah Stewart he he joined the Jeff.

Bill:
[15:07] Was it in Faces? Were they in Faces? No.

Frank:
[15:17] Beck group which is a super original name as a vocalist and sometimes songwriter So yeah, I guess he did write songs.

Bill:
[15:25] ... You heard Every Picture Tells a Story?

[15:27] It's off on the side here, but Every Picture Tells a Story by Rod Stewart is phenomenal. Like, as an album.

Frank:
[15:34] Okay, when was that album? That was... 71. Okay.

Bill:
[15:35] Like 1971. It's so good that it makes it tough to listen to his later stuff just,
because of Rod Stewart's capability as a singer and what direction he could have gone in that he he picked a path that was easy money and an easy easy living,
but he had he had a lot of grit and.

Rich Terfry:
[15:57] Chutzpah.

Bill:
[16:00] Yes, he had a lot of chutzpah.

Rich Terfry:
[16:02] You know, I don't know if this is the right moment to interject this, but I find that in the story of both of the versions of this song that we're looking at today, the guest,
guitarist really comes up as a big part of the story on both.
Because famously, Keith Richards contributed to the Rain Dogs album, but it was GE Smith,
who was the Saturday Night Live band leader who played the guitar on Tom,
Waits' Downtown Train, who as far as you know guitar slingers mid-80s you know
kind of would have been one of the the top top guns out there and so I you know
you got to think Rod Stewart's probably thinking we're gonna have to bring in a real hot guitar player on this one who you know when you're talking legendary,
guitarists you don't you don't get too far down the list before before Jeff Beck's name pops up.

Frank:
[16:57] Okay, cool. I did not know that GE Smith because GE Smith I was always introduced like my only knowledge of him was honestly from the Saturday Night Live band And that was it. And I was just like, who's this long haired skeleton? Like, why is he in charge of the band?

Rich Terfry:
[17:10] Yeah yeah he was you know kind of a studio guy I think you know I'm sure he
probably made some records as well but he was a kind of a studio guitarist played on a lot of records I wouldn't be able to rhyme off you know kind of the,
discography here and now but I know he played on some records but yeah
interesting that you know they both brought in some you know some big guns
to play the solos on these songs.

Bill:
[17:37] When I think about those two songs, like the Downtown Train, Tom Waits version, I think about that guitar. Because that guitar really, it's kind of crying and it makes you feel that sort of longing.

[17:59] And when I think of Rod Stewart's Downtown Train, I don't think anything about the guitar.
I'd have to re-listen to think about that guitar again. I can just think of Rod Stewart,
saying oh baby and and making sounds and I'd never think about the guitar but interesting,
I wonder how Jeff Beck felt about it.

Frank:
[18:16] Oh, they're buds. I think he enjoyed it.

Bill:
[18:18] Yeah, that's true. Okay.

Frank:
[18:37] I know that growing up that I had heard Rod Stewart because my dad probably had an eight track back in the day or or like you know 81 in the back seat of the Oldsmobile or whatever and
we're he's playing something by Rod Stewart but I remember my sister got Gasoline Alley which was,
his second album she got the tape for Christmas and it was like 1990 1991 so it would have been in around the same time that Downtown Train comes out and I'm wondering if that kind of inspired her,
to like look back at his catalog and start picking up some of his music and stuff like that. But,
I remember her specifically getting the tape for Christmas and like my dad and my aunt is just like Rod Stewart's like who's listening to him still because he's been around since the mid-60s.
Like he's been around for a good chunk of time.

Rich Terfry:
[19:31] Yeah, and I would think a little bit before my time, I suppose, but the peak of his solo pop stardom, I mean, I think, you know, the average person might think, you know, kind of "do you think I'm sexy" is maybe peak, you know, Rod Stewart, which at that point would have been the better part of 10 years in the rear view mirror sort of thing.

Frank:
[19:45] Yeah, that Maggie Mae and all that. Yeah.

Rich Terfry:
[19:53] Yeah. Yeah. All that, yeah.

Bill:
[19:54] Now you have right before it, so 89 for me, because I'm grade six then, and I grew up listening to a lot of Elvis and Amy Grant. That was kind of, those were our two big ones. So I wasn't, yeah it was.

Frank:
[20:08] Oh, I'm just, I'm just picturing the duet in my mind right now.

Bill:
[20:11] I know if only Elvis had lived long enough he'd be, he'd definitely be doing Christian rock. So.

Rich Terfry:
[20:17] Alright.

Bill:
[20:18] I know Rod Stewart through music videos and so Forever Young came out before this. Yes. And then this little heart of mine was like released before this and this was on the greatest hits.

Frank:
[20:23] Yes.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Bill:
[20:28] And it was the second time he did this little heart of mine. I loved it.

Frank:
[20:32] Yeah. Yeah.

Bill:
[20:33] Yeah, and then this came out and it was like wow, this is amazing So I mean Canada loved it because it went to number one. I'm pretty sure in Canada.

Frank:
[20:40] Yeah, downtown train went to number one in Canada and three in the states.

Bill:
[20:44] And it also like I started looking at his previous songs and so in Canada They often went to number one up to downtown trains. So This Old Heart of Mine went to number one
I think Forever Young did really well too. So we loved Rod Stewart even in the 80s periods.

Rich Terfry:
[20:59] I wish I could recall this specifically, but sometime around this time, as I recall, my mom went to see him live. Okay. Yeah, so she really, and I don't have memories of her being a big time,
Rod Stewart fan earlier on. Funny enough, she was actually a big Elvis fan. And I can kind of,
of remember some other stuff that she would have been into late 70s, early 80s. But I think, funny
enough, this 80s era Rod is where it really grabbed her. She went to see him live. I remember her,
coming home from the concert that night and telling the stories of him kicking soccer balls into the,
into the crowd and, you know, loving that. So that would have been in Halifax. I wish I could remember specifically what year that would have been, but I'm thinking it was right around this time.

Frank:
[21:52] Yeah, because I think Out of Order and then The Vagabond Heart. I think there is a bit of a maybe a bit of a resurgence. Like maybe there's a little dip and then a little bounce back at the end of the 80s, right?

Bill:
[22:04] In his autobiography, he talked as though he had to prove himself with Downtown Train, but I don't get it at all because he already had Forever Young and a couple other songs in the,
tank. So if it's proving yourself a year after a hit, it seems weird now in our era of 2023 where,
I don't know, you could go years without doing something, you're still kind of an it. But yeah, he claimed it sort of gave new life to his career. In a lot of ways, this period pads his,
his live performance career.
As he goes through this, now he's becoming this touring thing that can make tons of money,
I think.

Frank:
[22:42] What's crazy to me right now is like from the beginning of his career to like when he released this album, Storytellers, that's a smaller period of time than it is from the release of that album to now and he's still releasing music. Because it's been 30 years, well 33 years now.

Bill:
[23:01] Holy cow.

Frank:
[23:02] Since that album came out, since that first greatest hits package.

Bill:
[23:05] Right. And he was younger than us then, than we are now.
You got that math right? I'm working through this, I got issues, it's okay.

Frank:
[23:12] Yes. I think so. You're the math teacher. Yeah. So listening to like Rod's version versus Tom's version and I'm gonna speak about them using just their first names.

Bill:
[23:17] And he changed it.

Frank:
[23:27] Because I feel like they're familiar to me right now and and even the the covers that like Patti Smythe did and then because eventually Bob Seeger did release a cover version I think in 2011.

Bill:
[23:40] He didn't like his version.
So all the complaining, he's listened to it and said, I don't like it and then changed it and did a new vocal and put in backup singers.

Frank:
[24:18] So I found the Patty Smythe and the Bob Seeger version a little more faithful to the original in terms of the music that starts off with the guitar, warble, whale, whatever it is you want to call that. But Rod Stewart comes in, it's a little softer, a little more orchestral. And in,
my mind, what he's trying to do is he he started it slow. And he's just he's going for that build because he knows how to write a pop song he knows how to do well maybe this is Trevor Horn right.

Bill:
[24:47] Right, but this is what his voice needs to climb that mountain.

Frank:
[24:52] But uh yeah yeah so it's it starts off slow and it's really soft and everything and then by the end it like he's full rod.

Rich Terfry:
[25:00] But yeah, the arrangement on Rod Stewart's version is the most, for lack of a better term, radio-friendly.
Cut down on the intro, kind of get to it, get into it a little quicker, kind of sand off some of the edges a little bit. Although strangely, the long sort of coda at the end,
which is unusual for a hit song. I'm guessing maybe when it was played on the radio, there might have been some fading going on,
for that whole thing.

Frank:
[25:30] The DJ is talking over the end of the song. Yeah, it's almost uncomfortable.

Rich Terfry:
[25:32] Yeah, because that is a little unusual, I must say. That's the part of the song that surprises me.
That's where this version gets almost a little bit experimental, because it goes on so long.
We were listening earlier, it's like, this is almost weird how long this is going on for.

Bill:
[25:47] It was an awkward moment for all three of us.

Rich Terfry:
[25:50] But otherwise, it is a very, you know, polished and cleaned up arrangement of this song,
as we discussed earlier. The spotlight is somewhat taken off the guitar. And Rod Stewart's very much the star of the show
on this version of it. And it really does build in a way that Tom Waits version
doesn't quite have that steady upward trajectory.

Frank:
[26:19] It doesn't have it doesn't seem like it has a peak. It just sort of it's that it's a slow burn. Yeah Rod Stewart's version like when you hit that musical bridge and I'm assuming it's a bridge right like you're a musician you can explain do you do you know what a bridge is can you explain what a bridge is to us.

Rich Terfry:
[26:24] Right.

[26:32] Let's call it a bridge.

[26:36] I usually just simply think of it as like,
sort of an instrumental passage in a song that is kind of in the middle of the song rather than at the beginning or the end. And so it's usually bridging between, say, a verse and a chorus or a chorus and a next
verse or something to that effect.
But yeah, usually just like an instrumental passage in the middle of the song.

Frank:
[26:59] OK, so I think we were right. And every every time we were asking what a bridge was. we have an answer. Yeah, yeah. Or we just end the podcast. I think that was the whole idea. The podcast was determined what a bridge was.

Bill:
[27:04] We finally have a succinct answer that we will now be just hitting when you ask this question next time. We'll just hit play.

Rich Terfry:
[27:16] . .

Frank:
[27:20] Well, thank you, Rich, for being on the last episode of Bill of Frank's guilt free pleasures. But but that bridge because it's climbing, climbing, climbing the entire song. But that bridge.

Rich Terfry:
[27:24] .

Frank:
[27:31] Like it takes it up like a steep ramp at that point. And then it comes to that end where he goes full Stewart.

Bill:
[27:53] I've written down here about my misheard lyrics. I was reading the lyrics. I'm like, that's not what I heard when I would listen to the Rod Stewart version. And I think the reason is,
the Tom Waits version, there's this loneliness, longing. I don't think it's creepy, but it's certainly about someone watching somebody else and waiting to see someone he's in love with,
but is never going to talk to on a train. And he's a loner who sits on a train waiting for the same
person to come on that train and he's there kind of following her and whatever life she leads. At,
least that's what I had in my head and all the other people, the Brooklyn girls who are there,
going off to go out to clubs or whatever was going on then. That's what I hear when I hear
the Tom Waits version. Now the Rod Stewart version, I have no sense that this guy's a loner,
or that there's any chance that she's not going to get together with him. So when I read the lyrics,
I just hear it differently like there's a line so the beginning was outside another yellow moon,
Has punched a hole in the nighttime mist I climbed through the window and down to the street. I'm shining like a new dime,
That's Tom Waits, but when I was a kid, I don't know if you thought this but I'm like, oh Rod Stewart,
He's shining like a new diamond because yeah, because Rod Stewart's a diamond.

Frank:
[29:11] That's what I heard too, yeah.

Bill:
[29:13] I keep listening back and I only hear diamond because it's Rod Stewart and he's worth a ton of money,
But the dime is super depressing.
So this is the Tom Waits who makes rings out of spoons, right, for somebody to get married,
whereas Rod Stewart has big diamonds.

Rich Terfry:
[30:05] You know, and interestingly, although you could say that in the context of the Rain Dogs album that Tom Waits sort of, you know,
cleans things up a little bit on Downtown Train, we talked about it being a bit of a sore thumb. And it's true, you see it in the lyrics as well as, you know, the instrumentation that's happening, the arrangement and everything else. But there, you know, just a few little,
Tom Wait-isms in there, even the mere mention of a carnival in the lyrics and you know maybe this comes from you know knowing too much about these these two
individuals. I can imagine Tom Waits hanging out at a carnival. I don't picture Rod Stewart kind.

[30:47] Of roaming around a fairgrounds you know just soaking up the vibes and then although Tom Waits
is a California guy he spent some years in New York you know recording these albums and exploring
some new musical ideas. And so knowing that he was living in New York at the time, him mentioning the Brooklyn Girls
and so on, like yeah, checks out. Somehow, I don't know, Rod Stewart in Brooklyn, kind of scrappy Rod Stewart, the performances
is great and he delivers and so it's believable in that sense.
But when you really kind of get in there and you take a close look at the lyrics, I don't I don't know if I'm buying.
First of all, Rod Stewart, I'm always imagining a subway train rather than a commuter
interstate train or whatever. Rod Stewart riding the F train or whatever in New York.
I don't see it, let alone in Brooklyn.

Frank:
[31:51] Unless he like rent it out for himself and that's about it, right?

Rich Terfry:
[31:54] Yeah, right. Maybe. And then like I said, hanging out at the carnival grounds.

Frank:
[32:01] Yeah, right. Maybe.

Rich Terfry:
[32:01] You know, not so sure.
But it is interesting.
And to me, that's the one real Tom Waits tell in the lyrics, you know, because he had a thing for all things carnival.

Frank:
[32:09] Yeah.

[32:13] Yeah. Well, and it comes through on that rain dogs album, too, because there's a lot of like carnival sounds on it right?

Rich Terfry:
[32:16] Yeah.

[32:16] Oh, sure does.
Yeah, absolutely.

Bill:
[32:19] And it's like the dark corners of a carnival, even though I imagine everything's circular in a carnival, but there's always darkness somewhere in a corner and there's Tom.

Rich Terfry:
[32:26] Oh, the sideshow is where that's where Tom's hanging out.

Frank:
[32:30] Yeah yeah yeah that's where the freak shows are yeah yeah yeah yeah.

[32:40] The opening line is something that I really love. Outside of another yellow moon has punched a hole than a nighttime mist. And I like that. It's very similar to me to Bruce Coburn's Lovers
in a Dangerous Time, where he says you got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight. Like, it's very visceral, the lyric, and you can imagine it, you can see it happening,
you can see an action actually happening, you can like see the moon punching through the miss or it's almost a violent act but there's beauty in that violence.

Rich Terfry:
[33:12] It's a beautiful line. I mean, there's real poetry in these lyrics, and I would say more so than your average pop song, even by 80s standards. And so I must say, for me, for as much as I admire Tom Waits as a pop song, to see a few times in his career, his songs being covered and being turned into hits,
surprises me in a real pleasant way because you know often you don't get this level of poetry in a number one hit pop song. Maybe from a Bruce Coburn
the odd person who's that kind of writer but and so maybe this really says
something about you know Rod Stewart's talent that he's able to make something that you know might otherwise be utterly inaccessible for most people in Tom
Wade's hands turns into as big a hit as it could possibly be in Rod Stewart's
hands where everyone loves it. Yeah. Basically.

Bill:
[34:08] This is why I have no animosity to this song. Like I might make fun of Rod Stewart once in a while, but I will listen to this song the whole way through. And even those last 40 seconds.
But there is something about him bringing Tom Waits to the masses. So for me as a kid, I didn't know Tom Waits. He was terrifying. There's a video with him on a tricycle and he had devil horns.

Rich Terfry:
[34:28] "I Don't Want To Grow Up."

Bill:
[34:30] It was on Much. Yeah, I did. I couldn't, I just turned the station. I couldn't watch that, but this I could. And then years later, when I grew up, sometime in my mid 30s, I finally was ready to listen
to Rain Dogs. Like, oh wow, this is fantastic.
But it really, if it wasn't for this, I wouldn't have got there.

Rich Terfry:
[34:48] Yeah. Maybe it's worth mentioning, I don't know about you, Frank, but I only, like you, I
only became a Tom Waits fan later. I heard the Rod Stewart version first. I became familiar anyway with the Rod Stewart version before I did the Tom Waits version.
Is that the same for you?

Frank:
[35:03] Oh, same here. Yeah, yeah. 100% I kind of knew who Tom weights was a little bit but really didn't get into understanding him. I don't still don't think I understand him. But but like, yeah, gaining an appreciation until our friend, Eric Stewart. Like, because he's such a big fan and like he plays stuff and he's just like, Oh, geez, this is good. And you listen to his like, Oh, geez, this is really good. So you start digging into it a little bit more. You were talking about that misheard lyric and there's another one.

Rich Terfry:
[35:17] But gaining some appreciation.

Frank:
[35:37] That in the Rod Stewart version, I always heard it as when I see you tonight on a downtown train. And that was a certainty. It's like when I see you because you're going to be there and I'm going to be there. But the line will I see you tonight? It just.

Bill:
[35:43] Yes.

Frank:
[35:52] Odd. It turns it right around on its head, right? And it just makes it even more sad I guess it's it's but it's so beautiful.

Rich Terfry:
[35:58] Right, more longing and...

Bill:
[36:10] Christmas night while I was listening to this song. I'm like, oh I kept hearing it seeing Will I'm like, no, it's gotta be when like you said I wrote down Rod Stewart's going to win the girl So when he sees her he's going to see her and they and they're going to be together if they're not already.

Frank:
[36:25] Yeah, it's a certainty.

Rich Terfry:
[36:26] Whereas with the Tom Waits version I absolutely assume he won't.

Frank:
[36:29] Yeah, well exactly.

Bill:
[36:31] Oh yeah, he's never talked to her.

Rich Terfry:
[36:32] Yeah, this is, there's much more distance.

Bill:
[36:45] So second verse, maybe second verse is short.
The downtown trains are full, full of all them Brooklyn girls, trying so hard to break out of their little worlds. And then this line here kind of confuses me. You wave
your hand and they scatter like crows. They have nothing that'll ever capture your heart. They're just thorns without the rose. Be careful of them in the dark.

[37:39] Rod Stewart's pronunciation of dark really throws me off whenever I'm saying like he I kind of wish Trevor Horn's like no Could you say dark again? It's kind of a weird our thing going on,
So who's scouring my crows? Are they the Brooklyn girls?

Frank:
[37:53] Yeah, I think so. Because they don't have anything to offer. That this is my take on it. Like, sorry, not that they don't have anything to offer. But there's nothing of interest to,
him at that point, because he's, you know, looking for that girl that he's looking for on that downtown train. That's my take.
I don't know, you guys?

Rich Terfry:
[38:15] I've always just loved the image and like you were saying with the first line of the song it just really conjures a strong image in my mind I've never really been able to get past that to even think about it too much I just love that image.

Bill:
[38:28] Rod Stewart said that Tom Waits can do imagery so well as a songwriter and then Rod Stewart's like, I have to work on that, which is classic Rod Stewart sort of like, I gotta work on that.

Frank:
[38:40] It's like I try.

Bill:
[38:40] And then he said, I just write from the heart. That's what I do. I'm like, you're such a...

Frank:
[38:44] This is why I love Rod Stewart so much because he's all feeling. That's all I am.

Bill:
[38:48] He's all feeling. But the thorns without the rose, it's such a great image. And I like what you say,
that Rich is like, just the image being there is enough.
Like I can't really pierce through it. There's a little bit of thorn imagery there, but I don't totally know, but that what he paints there,
is something that's true.

Frank:
[39:09] Yeah.

[39:09] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Bill:
[39:11] If that makes sense.
And there's a little line before, if I was the one you chose to be your only one.

[39:19] Oh baby, can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?

Frank:
[39:22] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bill:
[39:23] So with Ron Rod Stewart saying, Oh baby, it's not like Tom White saying, Oh baby,
where it's just, let's sort of the walk away from it, but his old baby is like, okay so you're getting you're getting you're getting with it.

Frank:
[39:34] You're getting the girl.

[39:48] Well then then you jump into the the the course, which is, you,
know, will I see you tonight on a downtown train? Every night
every night is just the same on a downtown train. I like I like
it. It's it's a good little course. It does its job and
everything and that question of will will I see you tonight? I
really like that reading through the lyrics as opposed to
listening to the lyrics and understanding what the actual
lyric was it like you said it just adds that longing.

Rich Terfry:
[40:38] It's, in my experience, rare touching on what you just mentioned, Frank, where reading the lyrics of a pop song gives you a whole other rewarding experience often.
Otherwise, with a lot of pop songs, it really does nothing to heighten your experience of it. If anything, it might even drag it down. It's like, oh, these lyrics are terrible.

Frank:
[41:00] Yeah.

Rich Terfry:
[41:00] It's all just, a lot of songs are just carried by the melody. And the melody of this song is very, very strong as well.
and I think that's what makes, I think you could argue anyhow, the chorus of this song
memorable is the melody of it is so great.
But it's true that there's a lot of people out there don't even really pay a lot of attention to lyrics, but if you're one such person and you do decide one day to look them up and,
you read them, you're going to be floored. Whereas a lot of pop songs, they're not really going to give you a lot to sink your teeth
but there's a lot going on here.

Frank:
[41:31] Well, I mean, you would have been similar to us like today, like with everything streaming and all of that. You just listen to songs.
But when I was really getting into music in the 90s, you had CDs and you had CD cases. And that was my favorite thing to do was open up, check out the artwork and follow along with the lyrics, with the songs and then try and experience them that way.
And you're absolutely right. you gain a better appreciation of the song.

Rich Terfry:
[41:58] And I think that, you know, I lament that a little bit for, you know, sort of younger generations today. Although it's easy enough, you know, everything's on online, it's easy enough to Google lyrics,
but it's not always necessarily a part of the experience when you're streaming.
It's not right there like it is if you're, you know, kind of, you know, playing a CD and you have
the case in your hands or for that matter, you know, on an LP or something like that. There's that function if you're using Apple Music where if you, you know, tap a couple things and you can bring up the lyrics, but it's sort of a little bit of effort to do.
But I sometimes wonder if young people are really, you know, spending time with lyrics of songs the way we used to automatically because the experience you described I think was a fairly universal one. I think everyone loved doing that.

Frank:
[42:46] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there was always the because there are different types of CD cases to like there's the there's the book, then there's the ones that would just fold out lengthwise.

Rich Terfry:
[42:55] Fold.

[42:55] Poster, sure. Never get it right.

Frank:
[42:56] And then there was the ones that folded out almost into a poster and then trying to fold those back where it was just terrible.

Bill:
[43:02] "Fully Completely." I remember looking like what? Oh, come on. That's not how you put lyrics on a sheet Don't be crazy and then REM would come out with like a booklet and then you just realize they're Michael Stipe pictures and that.

Frank:
[43:08] Yeah.

Bill:
[43:14] Made me so angry. We're like you could have put the lyrics on I still don't know what you're saying.

Rich Terfry:
[43:19] I don't think he wanted you to know what he was saying, But that's a whole other discussion right there.

Bill:
[43:22] Yeah, yeah.

Frank:
[43:24] Well, I bet the there's the third verse we can we can go we talked about it a little bit but it's like the I know your window and I know it's late.

Bill:
[43:26] Alright Frank, we hitting every single lyric on this song?

Frank:
[43:38] I know your stairs and your doorway, which I think could be taken as creepy.
But again, there's, there's from Tom Waits, like from his perspective, it's like, I don't find it creepy. find it sad.

[44:23] Yeah, he's because he's going there and he's.

Bill:
[44:25] It makes me think a little bit of Taxi Driver, a little bit, which is a little more creepy. But when Rod Stewart says it, I'm like, well, of course, because he's going there. to date her, yeah.

Rich Terfry:
[45:07] Now, in my mind, I see those lines, that verse. And it adds a little intrigue to the song, because I start to wonder, oh, is there actually a bit of an established relationship here?
He's been to her house. Maybe there's more going on in this relationship than first meets the eye.
Maybe. It's just, in my mind, raised as a question.
Could go either way. Maybe there's more familiarity there there than we've been led to believe to this point or yeah there it is a little
creepier than we first thought where he's you know the creepin' is going
beyond the train and it's you know.

Frank:
[45:49] So we kind of talked about this a little bit before when we were listening to the song, but but what's your favorite part in the song? the Rod Stewart version.

Rich Terfry:
[46:00] Well I'll say something controversial okay and let me give you a little context
before I say this, I'm dropping a bomb here. I know you know this, but I'm a Tom Waits fan.
And I like a lot of his recent work.
Although I would probably say my three favorite,
Tom Waits albums is this trilogy that is sort of before us here today, Rain Dogs, Swordfishtrombones,
and Frank's Wild Years.

Frank:
[46:32] Which I don't think he really captured all of my wild years in that album, but you know.

Rich Terfry:
[46:37] Who could? No, really. In one album.
But I'm the type of guy, the weirder Tom Waits gets,
the more I like him. And if I was listening to, I hate to say this, but if I'm listening to Rain Dogs in the car, there might be days where a downtown train comes on.
I might skip it.

Bill:
[47:01] This is shocking.

Rich Terfry:
[47:03] So, where I'm going with this, my point is,
me being the kind of music listener that I am,
for as strange as it is, the unusual coda at the end of Rod Stewart's version is where it starts to get interesting for me. It's like, oh, what's going on here?
He's got a little trick up his sleeve here.
He's not the one trick pony that maybe you might,
paint him as. It's like, oh, now wait a minute. And was he inspired by Tom Waits to, you know, kind of explore some more interesting terrain
at the end of the song. And maybe it's safer to kind of put it at the end.
But I get excited when something makes me raise
an eyebrow a little bit. I like when someone's willing to go there a little bit
or experiment a bit. So although I can appreciate what,
he did with the song, where he took it, that he turned it into a hit, it's interesting to compare
in contrast his voice, his vocal chops to Tom Waits.
But I'm actually intrigued. If Rod Stewart walked in the door right now, and I could ask him one question about the song, I'd be like, what's the deal with the outro on the song?
To me, that's super interesting.

Frank:
[48:11] Yeah, okay, cool.

Bill:
[48:39] Most controversial moment in our podcast history. I think there no one has ever picked the the final coda Yeah, my favorite part of the rod stewart song is the party's not singing.

Rich Terfry:
[48:50] Well, how do you like them apples?

Bill:
[48:51] Let's do that. Yeah.

Frank:
[48:53] Well, that's my favorite part, too, except it's that musical bridge.

Bill:
[48:56] Oh, wow.

[48:56] Okay, oh, is it after the carnival and heart attacks? is that rhythm? Okay.

Frank:
[49:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah, because there's a like a 30 second bridge there and the guitars coming in and it's a little orchestral and cinematic. And like it was always climbing, climbing, climbing. but that's when it gets steep.

Rich Terfry:
[49:09] Yeah, sure, absolutely.

[49:14] And I should also mention, I'm a big time Jeff Beck Yardbirds fan.
In terms of pure riffage, I'd probably pick him over a lot of guys, if not everybody.
And so his inclusion on the song, that's pretty cool to me as well. Yeah.

Frank:
[49:58] Bill, favorite part?

Bill:
[49:59] I gotta say, when he says, oh baby, can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? I think that really is it. I just assumed he said it over and over throughout the song. He must have. Yeah, I like the Rod Stewart-isms. Yeah.

Frank:
[50:12] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it makes it his own.

Rich Terfry:
[50:13] And that's exactly what I was about to say. Yeah, that's that right there is where he...
It's interesting the story you were telling when he was first listening to it and there a moment came where he felt that he was taking ownership of the the song and right there is where he sort of delivered on that promise.

Frank:
[50:33] So we usually jump into categories towards the towards the last third of the podcast. So I've prepared rich.
Should we do our mixtapes? You have a mixtape? I'm gonna let you guys go first and then I'll finish things off I have about 12 songs that I potentially.

Bill:
[50:42] Oh, good. Yeah.

[50:50] Oh, wow. Okay, I got a low list, but I like a guest going first. And we didn't mention this at the beginning, but Richard Fry's, AKA Buck65 for listeners, especially our Canadian listeners who will know.
And so when I hear the word mixtape, I know, you know, not like I'm intimidated in a good way.

Rich Terfry:
[51:10] Well, and although I had a little known fact, I too covered a Tom Waits song once. I should say maybe more than once, but in 99 I released an album called Man Overboard and the original, it might be most fair to say demo version of that album, included a,
cover of Singapore by Tom Waits, which didn't make the final cut of the album.
And then live, I used to do a very deep cut Tom Wait song,
called Tabletop Joe. But anyhow, yes, this is my whole thing, putting these mixed tapes together.
And so I gave it some thought. Should we jump into it here? I find it, I bet you guys have found the same thing,
is that this song, Rod Stewart's version of this song,
routinely pops up on these lists, a bunch of them, on the internet of songs you didn't know were covers.
Now to me, that's an interesting enough category. God knows I've talked about that sort of thing on my radio show plenty.
But with this particular case, there's
more to it than just that.
I think it fits into an even smaller category. And I wish there was more of this, where you have here.

[52:32] Big-time bonafide mainstream pop star bringing into you know the spotlight and the mainstream consciousness what at best we might call sort of a cult figure.

[52:50] Right? Tom Waits I mean you know he's not nobody but in in particular when we're looking at an album like Rain Dogs you know you ask the next person that walks
down the street hey ever heard Rain Dogs? I'll put 50 bucks on them saying no. So
know he's he's not I don't know if you could call Tom Waits a household name. I think of him in,
particular the parts of his catalog that I love the most. To me I almost think of him as an underground type character, certainly a cult figure, and if not in the strictest definition of it,
if you look at his body of work and maybe what inspired him and what he was interested in he's
He's certainly coming from the deeps, you know what I mean? So maybe at best you could argue that he was an experimenter
and whatever else who had more success with it than a lot of others. But nevertheless, I think that here we
have a case where sort of, I'm trying to think of the most fair word I can use,
but maybe a slightly more fringy musician is being brought into the mainstream.
because a lot of the other songs that you would find on those lists of songs you didn't know were covers
aren't necessarily that.
I'm trying to think of a good example, but if you look at.

[54:12] I Love Rock and Roll by Joan Jett, the Arrows, who wrote and recorded the original version, were a fairly successful band in their own right.
And you see a lot of that on those sorts of lists.
So this situation got me thinking of other cases where this was the case. case and I really wish that there were more examples of it because to me it's super interesting
and exciting and more often you see it the other way around where and hopefully this isn't too,
flippant a way to put it but where like an indie band will do kind of an ironic cover of some big,
pop it that happens all the time sometimes it makes me roll my eyes but this is much more
interesting and and the stakes are a little higher where a big time pop star will take a more obscure fringy, culty, whatever, however you want to describe it, person and cover them. So I came up
with a couple examples and I don't know if they're quite as strong as today's example but I'll throw
out there and this one is very similar parallel I would say Eric Clapton's
version of Cocaine by JJ Kale.

[55:23] JJ Cale, if you're going to compare anyone to Tom Waits, you know, if you're going to put anyone else in a category, maybe it's a guy like JJ Cale and Rod Stewart and Eric Clapton. I mean, not that,
far off, right? So it's a very, very close, you know, kind of thing. Now, I don't know if you,
know that The Tide is High by Blondie is a cover, but the original version of that song was by a,
relatively small, certainly on an international level.

[55:58] It was a Jamaican band called the Paragons,
and I don't think they really had any success outside of Jamaica at all.

Bill:
[56:03] Wow, okay, I didn't know this either.

Rich Terfry:
[56:05] Really super interesting to me that the guys in Blondie even knew this song. Someone would really have to know their stuff,
to know the Paragons and maybe this song in particular. To my knowledge, and I could be wrong about this,
have to look it up but I don't even know I have the out the Paragon's album I don't know if their version was even ever released as a single so to me it extra super interesting maybe a real classic and one that does turn up on
these lists fairly often the birds version of turn turn turn or whatever by,
Pete Seeger right so you're taking something from a you know I guess a
slightly more fringy genre, you know, kind of deep folk music and turning it into a big pop hit.
I got a couple other good ones. This one is another fairly well-known case, but Roberta
Flax, Killing Me Softly, is a cover of an extremely little-known song. What's her name?
Lori Lieberman, I think, who originally, you know, singer, LA singer-songwriter, kind of played at the Troubadour, it never really became famous. The story goes that Roberta Flack just heard it,
kind of on a total fluke and loved it. And then of course there's the whole other wave, the Fugees,
Yeah. covering it again decades later and making it a hit all over again.

Frank:
[57:29] Because I remember we did, I forget which song it was, but it was a cover song. And then I said, you know, famous cover songs, where the the cover is more popular than the original.
And I said, Fuji is covering Roberta Flack. And then afterwards, finding out that it was Laura Lieberman or just, I was wrong on the podcast.
And that never happens.
I've never said anything that was infactual on the podcast.

Rich Terfry:
[57:53] Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

Bill:
[57:55] Yeah, we can insert it. Don't worry. No one will know.

Rich Terfry:
[57:59] I'll throw out one more for you and then I'll and then I'll pass the mic as you.

[58:05] Will. No, no, no. But and this one is a little more obscure, but a great example of what I'm talking about, I suppose. But What a Man by Salt and Pepper is,
basically a cover. You might argue that it's like an interpretation, but it's,
pretty darn close to a cover of a sort of a soul song by a woman named Linda Lindell.
Let me double check that. I did write it down because I want to be sure, but I'm pretty sure it's Linda Lindell. Yes, Linda Lindell.
It was just released as a 45, just sort of a one-off single.
I don't even know if Linda Lindell ever recorded a full-length album.
So not well-known, pretty obscure figure, of course. and Salt and Pepper had a bunch of hits.
That might have been their biggest one. That was a big old hit. So, and you know, certainly another case where songs you didn't know were covers.
And super interesting that, you know,
this one sort of turns the tables a little bit in that, you know, we're talking about
what was like, you know, kind of a soul song. Fairly sort of, you know, mainstream in its presentation,
but then here's a hip hop group doing it. That in itself is a bit of a rarity,
a hip hop group kind of taking on a cover.

[59:26] But nevertheless, at this point in their career, Sal and Pepper, they were big pop stars,
very well established, and like I said, they turned that into a big hit. So that was the first thing that popped into mind for me was, again, I don't know if it's the exact right word,
but fringier artists being brought into the mainstream with a cover, because that doesn't happen a lot.
In fact, those were really the only examples of that
that I could find.
I'm sure there are more, and if anyone can think of more, I'd love to hear them, because this is the sort of thing that really excites me.

Frank:
[1:00:01] Right into the right please someone write us please someone tell us something yeah but it's really cool because there's all sorts of like musical gems out there that no one knows about.

Rich Terfry:
[1:00:04] Yes.
Drop us a line.

Frank:
[1:00:16] Like or sorry I shouldn't say no one but there it's not as well known and then these pop stars are are bringing them out to the forefront.
And sometimes these artists can gain a second life because of it.

Rich Terfry:
[1:00:29] Now in the early days of rock and roll, this happened all the time, of course, right? So you think like Elvis doing,
well practically every song Elvis did the early days of his career was a cover of a song recorded by some lesser known, usually
a blues artist or R&B artist or something like that.
But I digress.

Bill:
[1:00:49] I gotta say this is a big moment for me just as a radio listener because Rich Terfry does the (is it called the drive?) from about (is it three to seven?) okay so three to seven on CBC Radio Two.

Rich Terfry:
[1:00:57] Yeah.

Bill:
[1:01:03] And i would listen to it around i think is it around six o'clock that you would do the deep dive like on a friday or is it okay last hour of the show and there'd be this deep dive and.

Rich Terfry:
[1:01:09] Yeah, right. last hour of the show.

Bill:
[1:01:14] And it was my favorite part. And so- Well, the stories. Oh, it is great.

Frank:
[1:01:15] Oh yeah. Well the stories.

Bill:
[1:01:18] And so even if it was having a bad day at work and I knew I had to be leaving at six to go home, but I knew I could get this.
And that was like my favorite part of the show. So I always wanted to find these deep dives. Like, so the one day you did a deep dive,
on a tragically hip album, because you did every album. That's right. And so it was on Phantom Power and I was, didn't want to come out of the car,
because I knew I wouldn't be able to find it because I'm like, there's gotta be, so I go online, rich to fry deep dives, like they're not available, I want like, you know,
maybe a box set, it would be great for me personally
or for the world, but we just got our own personal deep dive.

Frank:
[1:01:54] Yeah, which is fantastic.

Rich Terfry:
[1:01:55] Yeah, man.

Bill:
[1:01:56] Yeah, so that leads to my couple songs. I may be jumping on Frank's toes here, maybe,
but because we think similarly, and this was the easiest way to do this,
was originally I was thinking of train songs, But then I thought of songs that were like the vibe in Tom Waits, but then were covered
so that they were kind of cheesier, but I couldn't, it wasn't coming up for me.
So I ended up thinking of a couple train songs that were so similar.
Because we were 12, I only have like three. So the most obvious one for me is Downbound Train by Bruce Springsteen, because it sounds so similar, downbound and downtown.
And there's that longing and depression within the song that is kind of in the Tom Waits song.
Well, there's something more joyous,
even in the Tom Waits version, compared to the Bruce Springsteen.

[1:02:55] But thinking of Rod Stewart's cover as very Rod Stewart,
this is almost like Bruce Springsteen going,
more Bruce Springsteen than usual to me in the song.
Like sometimes he mutters his lines in a way that Ben Stiller would imitate Bruce Springsteen.
So I liked the song. And so that was one. There was another one called Downbound Train by Chuck Berry, which was about the devil taking a guy to hell.
Okay. And then there was another one called Night Train.
There's a Bruce Cockburn one, which I love, but I went with the James Brown version because it was a bit more upbeat.

Frank:
[1:03:28] So I went straight planes trains and automobiles. That's the theme of my of my uh, well, it's modes of transportation. Bicycle Race by Queen. This has nothing to do with any sort of feel. It's just
this is the theme. Modes of transportation. Fast Car by Tracy Chapman. Oh, I know right.

Rich Terfry:
[1:03:47] Modes of transport.

Bill:
[1:03:48] So, I'm going to go ahead and do a little bit of a,
That's okay.

Frank:
[1:03:54] Midnight train to Georgia, Gladys Knight in the Pips, Pink Cadillac, Bruce Springsteen.

Bill:
[1:04:00] Very good.

Frank:
[1:04:02] Runaway Train, Soul Asylum, Aeroplane by Bjork, Get Out of My Dreams Get Into My Car by Billy Ocean, and then we are going to finish it off with Hands by Jewel.

Bill:
[1:04:16] Oh, no, no. You don't, that's not funny. And no, you don't walk in your hands somewhere. No, not funny. No.

Frank:
[1:04:17] Okay, okay, we won't put jewel on we'll put Train In Vain by The Clash.

Rich Terfry:
[1:04:26] You.

Bill:
[1:04:33] That's a good call. We haven't talked about another iconic performer we bring up most episodes.

Frank:
[1:04:40] The patron saint of Bill and Frank's Guilt-Free Pleasures. Yeah. Rich, your opinion. Could Michael Bolton sing this song?

Rich Terfry:
[1:04:48] Hmm oh downtown train yes I think so.

Frank:
[1:04:53] I think so, too.

Rich Terfry:
[1:04:54] I feel like I didn't even need to think about it long I can hear it in his voice almost immediately.

Frank:
[1:04:59] Especially at the end, like after that bridge that when when he's just repeating the chorus at the end, and he just sort of brings it up. That's when Michael Bolton destroys the world though, though, where he goes full Bolton and just ends the world.

Bill:
[1:05:11] Oh, yeah, and that Michael Bolton in 1989 is is a then is that when we got?

Frank:
[1:05:17] Oh, this is right in the that's right in the meat of the Michael
Bolton sandwich. So I have in front of me here the the Grammys,
for best male pop vocal performance, because Downtown
Train was nominated in 1991. Lost to Roy Orbison's Pretty,
woman. But Michael Bolton was on that list, Georgia on my mind.
The year before Michael Bolton won for How Am I Supposed to Live
Without You. The subsequent year, Michael Bolton wins 1992 for,
When a Man Loves a Woman. But I'm looking at the list of the.

Rich Terfry:
[1:05:52] Right. How could he not?

Frank:
[1:05:56] Songs that were nominated in 91. Oh my goodness, how do you pick?
So Roy Orbison wins for Pretty Woman. Another Day in Paradise,
Phil Collins, Georgia on my mind, Michael Bolton. I Don't Have
the heart James Ingram who's critically under appreciated in my mind Stormfront
by Billy Joel and then Downtown Train by Rod Stewart 1991 I think was I think.

Bill:
[1:06:18] 1991? I thought this song came out in 89.

Frank:
[1:06:22] Was released in 90.

Bill:
[1:06:24] Oh right, because they would release it for so long. I got this all wrong.

Rich Terfry:
[1:06:27] Grammys are often, you know, a little behind.

Bill:
[1:06:29] Oh yeah, yeah sure. Yeah, that's right. So this comes out in 1990. Oh wow, I gotta to re- rethink about how I heard the song for the first time. I'm 14 then. That's a whole other world.

Frank:
[1:06:38] Yeah, that's a that's a different world.

[1:06:40] Anyways, yeah, 100%. This could have been a Michael Bolton song. Could this be a Hallmark movie?
Could easily become a creepy Hallmark movie.

Bill:
[1:06:51] Hallmark after dark.

Rich Terfry:
[1:06:52] Does Hallmark do creepy movies?

Frank:
[1:06:56] Yeah, I don't like them.

Rich Terfry:
[1:06:59] I mean, you know, there's some sort of romance, obviously, at the heart of this thing.
So from that standpoint, like I said, if you went with the interpretation I've had where the third verse comes along, you think, oh, wait a minute, maybe these people,
maybe these two know each other. Maybe it's the early days of a relationship or something,
you know, in which case, maybe. But I'm with you in that, you know, it's more Scorsese, even, but Taxi Driver vibes,
that hallmark. And if a hallmark movie set in New York, you know, it's like.

Bill:
[1:07:28] Yeah, I don't think that downtown train is taking them out to the country to like find themselves.

Frank:
[1:07:33] No, exactly.

Rich Terfry:
[1:07:38] Upper West Side, not Brooklyn.

Frank:
[1:07:40] Yeah, yeah. What other categories do we have?

Bill:
[1:07:44] You know.

[1:07:44] I just thought out the top of my head when I was listening to the ending that you could do a pretty good floor routine To this song with that final moments. Yeah. Oh no with the with the thing with the.

Rich Terfry:
[1:07:54] Rhythmic gymnastics.

[1:07:55] Yeah.

Bill:
[1:07:55] With the yeah yeah rhythmic gymnastics would work especially at the final
moments where everyone's watching them the final sway.

Rich Terfry:
[1:08:01] And you're thinking just based on the gestures I'm seeing here, the ribbon.

Bill:
[1:08:04] Yeah it's all ribbon yeah yeah maybe some leaping it could be yeah I don't.

Rich Terfry:
[1:08:06] Yeah. It's all ribbon. Okay.

[1:08:10] Maybe something like that. Thank you.

Bill:
[1:08:12] Know why I do this on a podcast but I'm I sometimes will talk with my hands yeah.

Frank:
[1:08:15] Can see if you can see Bill right now he's he's rhythmically flailing his arms about.

Bill:
[1:08:19] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Frank:
[1:08:38] So we're bringing the the episode to a close and rich we just yeah thanks so much for bringing yourself and your knowledge and the insight not just to the song but musically in general and most especially telling us what a bridge is so that ended,
over a year long debate in our minds.

Rich Terfry:
[1:08:58] I almost hate to ruin it for you, but this is fun. Have me by again sometime. I'd love to.

Frank:
[1:09:04] This would be fantastic. Yeah. And we want to thank the listeners for sticking it out right to the end. And, you know, we know you have it on your phones and on your computers
and all that other sort of stuff. And you listen to it to the podcast wherever you are. And just wondering, will we see you tonight on a downtown train?

Bill:
[1:09:29] Thank you for listening to Bill and Frank's Guilt-Free Pleasures.