Yeah I played the Red River Valley
He'd sit in the kitchen and cry
Run the fingers through seventy years of livin'
"Wonder, if every well he'd drilled gone dry?"
We was friends, me and this old man
Desperados waitin' for a train
Desperados waitin' for a train

Soon as I could walk he'd take me with him
To a place 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
Desperados waitin' for a train
Desperados waitin' for a train

Yeah he's a drifter, he's 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
And he'd wink and give me money for the girls
And our lives was like, some old Western movie
Desperados waitin' for a train
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
To me he's one of the heroes of this country
So why's he all dressed up like them old men
Just drinkin' beer and playin' Moon and Forty-two
Like a desperado waitin' for a train
Like a desperado waitin' for a train

The day before he died I went to see him
Yeah I was grown and he was almost gone
We closed our eyes and dreamed us up a kitchen
We played another verse of that old song
Yeah Jack you know, that son-of-a-bitch is comin'

Like desperados waitin' for a train
Like desperados waitin' for a train
Like desperados waitin' for a train
Like desperados waitin' for a train
Desperados waitin' for a train
Desperados waitin'

Copyright: Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Writer(s): Guy Clark