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