I'd play the Red River Valley and he'd sit in the kitchen and cry And run his fingers through seventy years of livin' And wonder Lord has every well I drilled gone dry We was friends me and this old man We're like desperados waiting for the train like desperados waiting for the train 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's 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 the train like desperados waiting for the 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 dominos Lyin' bout their lives while they'd play And I was just a kid they all called his sidekick Like desperados waiting for the train like desperados waiting for the train One day I looked up and he's pushin' eighty And there's 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 Like desperados waiting for the train like desperados waiting for the train And 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 I swear this time it's comin' And we're like desperados waiting for the train like desperados waiting for the train Like desperados waiting for the train like desperados waiting for the train