Tom Waits wrote this song and was the first to record it, including it on his 1985 album Rain Dogs. His version is well known to his fans, but Waits occupies a pretty specific niche and doesn't do much promotion. Stewart's more polished version, impelled by his marketing machine and an elegant music video, was a big hit, climbing to #3 in America and #10 in the UK.
Stewart recorded the song as a last-minute addition to Storyteller, a greatest hits compilation with a few new recordings. Rob Dickins, an executive at his record label, brought the song to Stewart's attention.
Stewart told The Guardian, April 19, 2013, that when he hears the right song, he looks for the way to make it a Rod Stewart song. "For instance," he explained, "I'm sure Tom Waits wouldn't mind me saying this - Tom's 'Downtown Train,' I realized there was a melody there in the chorus, and it's beautiful, but he barely gets up and barely gets down to the lower notes, so I took it to the extreme. That was a case where I brought the chorus alive and there have been a couple like that."
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