Soul Sounds Unlimited

The dangling carrot of the second chance is one of the more tempting but dangerous propositions in the creative world -- is it possible to revise and improve past work, or is looking backwards an inherently counterproductive endeavor? It took Patty Smyth 33 years to decide it was time to revisit her version of Tom Waits' "Downtown Train," originally featured on her 1987 album Never Enough, and she is confident that her new, stripped-down rendition is superior to her first crack at it.

The new take on "Downtown Train" is featured on her upcoming album, It's About Time, her first in 28 years. Smyth spoke with AllMusic about the motivation behind her new rendition, if Rod Stewart's hit version from 1989 impacted how she chose to treat the song, and her observations on how women were treated by the music industry back in the 1980s versus now.