Desperados Waiting For The Train

(album: The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy - 1974)

I'd sing the Red River Valley and he'd sit in the kitchen and cry
Run his fingers through seventy years of living
Wonder Lord has every well I drilled ran dry
We were friends me and that old man
Like desperados waiting for the train like desperados waiting for the train

He's a drifter and a driller of oil wells and an old school man of the world
Taught me how to drive his car when he's 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 waiting for the train like desperados waiting for the train

From the time that I could walk he take me with him
To a place called the Green Frog Cafe
There was old men with beer guts and dominos
Lying bout their lives while they'd play
And I was just a kid that they all called his sidekick
Like desperados waiting for the train like desperados waiting for the train

Now I looked up and he was pushing eighty
And there's brown tobacco stains all down his chin
To me he's one of the heroes of this country
So why's he all dressed up like some old men
Drinking beer and playing moon and 42
Like desperados waiting for the train like desperados waiting for the train

Then just before he died I went to see him I was grown and he was almost gone
We just closed our eyes and dreamed us up a kitchen
And sang another verse to that old song
(Don't cry Jack it's only Jesus comin')
Like desperados waiting for the train like desperados waiting for the train
Like desperados waiting for the train