And I played the Red River Valley And he'd sit in the kitchen and cry Run his fingers through seventy years of livin' And wonder, "Lord, has every well I've drilled gone dry?" We was friends, me and this old man Was like desperados waitin' for a train Like desperados waitin' 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 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 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 waitin' for a train Like desperados waitin' for a train And one day I looked up and he's pushin' 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 Drinkin' beer and playin' Moon and Forty-two Just like a desperado waitin' for a train Like a desperado waitin' 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 comin' We're desperados waitin' for a train Was like desperados waitin' for a train Like desperados waitin' for a train Like desperados waitin' for a train