I played the Red River Valley

He'd sit in the kitchen and cry

Run his fingers through

Seventy years of livin'

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

We were friends,

Me and this old man

We's like desperados

Waitin' for a train

Desperados

Waitin' for a train

He's a drifter,

A driller of oil wells

He's 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

There was old men with beer guts and dominos

Lying 'bout their lives while they played

I was just a kid

They all called me "Sidekick"

Just like desperados

Waitin' for a train

Like desperados

Waitin' for a train

One day I looked up and

He's pushin' eighty

He's got brown tobacco stains

All down his chin

Well 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

Jus' like desperados

Waitin' for a train

Like a desperado

Waitin' for a train

The day 'fore 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 one more 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