Guy Clark Desperados Waiting For A Train Lyrics

Desperados Waiting For A Train Lyrics

I played the Red River Valley 

He'd sit in the kitchen and cry 

Run his fingers through seventy years of livin' 

And wonder, "Lord, why has every well I've drilled gone dry?" 



We were friends, me and this old man 

We's 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 

He 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 was 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 dominos 

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 

Well 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 

Jus' like desperados waitin' for a train 

Like a desperado waitin' for a train 



The day 'fore 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 one more verse to that old song 

(spoken) Come on, Jack, that son-of-a-bitch is comin' 



We're desperados waitin' for a train 

Was like desperados waitin' for a train