And 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 ever' well I've drilled gone dry?"

We is friends, me and this old man
Was like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train

Well 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
We're like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train

And 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
Lying 'bout their lives while they'd played

And I was just a kid
But they all called his "Sidekick"
Was like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train

And 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
Just Like a desperados waiting for a train
Like a desperados waiting for a train

And then the day before he died, I went to see him
And 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 bitch is comin' "

And we're desperados waiting for a train
Was like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train