Desperados Waiting for the Train

And I played the Red River Valley

And he'd sit in the kitchen and cry

Run his fingers through seventy years of livin'

And wonder, "Lord, has every well I've drilled gone dry?"

We was friends, me and this old man

Was like desperados waitin' for a train

Like desperados waitin' for a train

Well, he's a drifter and a driller of oil wells

And an old school man of the world

He taught me how to drive his car when he was too drunk to

And he'd wink and give me money for the girls

And our lives was like some old western movie

Like desperados waitin' for a train

Like desperados waitin' for a train

From the time that I could walk, he'd take me with him

To a bar called the Green Frog Cafe

And there was old men with beer guts and dominoes

Lying 'bout their lives while they played

And I was just a kid, but they all called me "sidekick"

Was like desperados waitin' for a train

Like desperados waitin' for a train

And one day I looked up and he's pushin' eighty

And has brown tobacco stains all down his chin

Well, to me, he's one of the heroes of this country

So why's he all dressed up like them old men

Drinkin' beer and playin' Moon and Forty-two

Just like a desperado waitin' for a train

Like a desperado waitin' for a train

And then the day before he died I went to see him

I was grown and he was almost gone

So we just closed our eyes and dreamed us up a kitchen

And sang another verse to that old song

Come on, Jack, that son-of-a-bitch is comin'

We're desperados waitin' for a train

Was like desperados waitin' for a train

Like desperados waitin' for a train

Like desperados waitin' for a train