I'd play the Red River Valley And he'd sit out in the kitchen and cry And run his fingers through seventy years of livin' And wonder, "Lord, has ever' well I've drilled run dry?" We were friends, me and this old man Like desperados waitin' for a train Like desperados waitin' for a train He's a drifter and a driller of oil wells And an old school man of the world He let me drive his car When he's too drunk to And he'd wink and give me money for the girls And our lives were 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 were old men with beer guts and dominos Lying 'bout their lives while they'd played And I was just a kid They all called his "Sidekick" Like desperados waitin' for a train Like desperados waitin' for a train One day I looked up and he's pushin' eighty And there's 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 Drinkin' beer and playin' Moon and Forty-two Like desperados waitin' for a train Like desperados waitin' for a train A 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 guns are 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