• Track: Downtown Train
• Artist: Tom Waits
• Album: Rain Dogs
• Year: 1985

Lyrics:

Outside another yellow moon
Has punched a hole in the nighttime, yes
I climb through the window and down the street
I’m shining like a new dime
The downtown trains are full
With all those Brooklyn girls
They try so hard to break out of their little worlds

Well, you wave your hand and they scatter like crows

Well, you wave your hand and they scatter like crows
They have nothing that will ever capture your heart
They’re just thorns without the rose
Be careful of them in the dark
Oh if I was the one
You chose to be your only one
Oh baby can’t you hear me now, can’t you hear me now?
Will I see you tonight
On a downtown train?
Every night it’s just the same
You leave me lonely, now
I know your window and I know it’s late
I know your stairs and your doorway
I walk down your street and past your gate
I stand by the light at the four-way
You watch them as the fall
Oh baby, they all have heart attacks
They stay at the carnival
But they’ll never win you back
Will I see you tonight
On a downtown train?
Every night it’s just the same
Oh, baby
Will I see you tonight
On a downtown train?
All of my dreams just fall like rain
Oh, baby, on a downtown train
Will I see you tonight
On a downtown train?
Every night, every night it’s just the same
Oh, baby
Will I see you tonight
On a downtown train?
All of my dreams just fall like rain
Well, on a downtown train
Well, on a downtown train
Well, on a downtown train
Well, on a downtown train
On a downtown train

Get It:

Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs is available here:

If you were listening to pop radio in 1989, you most likely will peg this song for being a cover of a Rod Stewart track. However, as I recently learned, Rod Stewart covered the track, which was written and first recorded by Waits. Personally, I think the Waits version outshines Stewart’s cover.

The lyrics are perfect for Waits’ voice, which music critic Daniel Durcholz described as sounding as though it had been “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.” If that doesn’t make you want to fire up this track, I don’t know what will.

This is the perfect backdrop for three fingers of good bourbon—neat—and a cloudy day. If you have a little heartbreak to toss in, even better.

Spin it, my babies.

Video: 

Another dusky Tom Waits tune that is a personal favorite with Sir Dances with Bass is Hold On, which appears on 1999’s Mule Variations:

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