I played the Red River Valley and he'd sit in the kitchen and cry
An' run his fingers through seventy years of livin'
An' wonder Lord, as ever, will that drill run dry?
We were friends, me and this old man
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
There was old men with beer guts and dominoes
Lying 'bout their lives while they played
And I was just a kid, they all called me "Sidekick"
Like desperados waitin' for a train
Like desperados waitin' for a train
He's a drifter and a driller of oil wells
And an old school man of the world
He'd let 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 were like, some old Western movie
Like desperados waitin' for a train
Like desperados waitin' for a train
One day I looked up and he's pushin' eighty
And there's brown tobacco stains all down his chin
To me he was a hero of this country
So why's he all dressed up like them old men
Drinkin' beer and playin' Moon and Forty-two
Like desperados waitin' for a train
Like desperados waitin' for a train
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-gun's are comin'
Like desperados waitin' for a train
Like desperados waitin' for a train