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

He's a drifter and a driller of oil wells
He's an old school man of the world
He taught me how to drive his car when he’s too drunk to
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 place called Green Frog Café
It was old men with beer guts and dominos
Lyin' 'bout their lives while they played
Yeah I was just a kid, they all called me Sidekick
Like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train

One day I looked up, he was pushing eighty
Had 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 them old men?
He's drinking beer, playin’ Moon and Forty-Two
Like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train
On the day before he died I went to see him
I was grown, 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’
Like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train

Like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train

Like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train