Second Time Around

One of the initial goals of creating these mixes was to expose each other to new music, but as I decided which track I wanted to begin the second "conversation" with, I landed on Tom Waits' Downtown Train. I knew it would be familiar to Gered, but I liked the tone it set for the mix; first songs need to have a tight combination of different sounds. Downtown Train has the comfortable down-on-his-luck Tom Waits hero looking for that one girl that will change his life. It brings together slow pop lyrics and a gentle but raw guitar line (played masterfully by Marc Ribot). It has that old-fashioned feel that shows up in a lot of his work. A feeling that makes the song seem relevant in any era. Rod Stewart, whose covered a number of Waits' songs, recorded a version of Downtown Train in the 90s. Stewart sings with a lot of emotion, and captures the essence, but I've always preferred the original.