I played the Red River Valley He'd sit in the kitchen and cry Run his fingers through seventy years of livin' "I wonder, Lord, has every well I've drilled gone dry?" We were friends, me and this old man Like desperados waitin' for a train Desperados waitin' for a train He's a drifter, a driller of oil wells He's an old school man of the world 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 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 was old men with beer guts and dominoes Lying 'bout their lives while they played I was just a kid, they all called me "Sidekick" Just like desperados waitin' for a train Like 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 was a hero 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 Desperados waitin' for a train The day before he died I went to see him I was grown and he was almost gone. So we closed our eyes and dreamed us up a kitchen And sang one more verse to that old song Come on, Jack, that son-of-a-bitch is comin' Desperados waitin' for a train Desperados waitin' for a train.