Desperados Waiting For The Train

(album: Old No. 1 - 1975)

And I played the Red River Valley
And he'd sit in the kitchen and cry
Run his fingers through seventy years of living
And wonder, "Lord, has every well I've drilled gone dry?"
We was friends, me and this old man
Was like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting 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 waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting 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 waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train

And one day I looked up and he's pushing 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
Drinking beer and playing Moon and Forty-two
Just like a desperado waiting for a train
Like a desperado waiting 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 coming
We're desperados waiting for a train
Was like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train