# In 1989, Rod Stewart found a song everyone underrated. It became one of his biggest hits and sold over 4,000,000 albums

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/in-1989-rod-stewart-found-a-song-everyone-underrated-it-became-one-of-his-biggest-hits-and-sold-over-4000000-albums/
- Published: 2026-10-27T12:00:00+00:00
- Updated: 2026-10-27T12:58:36+00:00
- Original publisher: Far Out
- Original article: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/1989-rod-stewart-song-everyone-underrated-sold-4000000-albums/
- Topics: Art, Culture, Entertainment, Music

## Key points

- Stewart turned Tom Waits’s “Downtown Train” into a hit.
- He said he brought out the song’s chorus melody.
- The headline reports more than four million albums sold.

## Summary

In 1989, Rod Stewart recorded Tom Waits’s “Downtown Train” for his greatest-hits album, seeing a strong melody in a song he felt had been overlooked. Stewart’s pop-oriented version became a major hit, showing how he could bring a songwriter’s work to a broader audience while retaining the song’s core.

The article says Stewart believed Waits’s original chorus had a beautiful melody that was not fully brought out, so he heightened it in his arrangement. It places the cover in a career marked by shifts between rock, folk, disco and pop, and notes that Stewart’s recording helped expose listeners to Waits’s songwriting. The headline claims the associated album sold more than four million copies.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.