Desperadoes Waiting For A Train Lyrics - Nanci Griffith

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