Nanci Griffith - Desperadoes Waiting For A Train lyrics

(Guy Clark)

And I'd play the red river valley

And he'd sit in the kitchen and he'd cry

And run his fingers

Through seventy years of living

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

We were friends me and this old man

Like desperadoes waiting for a train

Like desperadoes 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 girld

And our lives were like some old western movie

Like desperadoes waiting for a train

Like desperadoes waiting 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 about their lives while they played

And I was just a kid

They all called me sidekick

Like desperadoes waiting for a train

Like desperadoes waiting for a train

One day I looked up and

He was pushing eighty

And there was brown tobacco stains

All down his chin

To me he was one of the heroes

Of this country

So why's he all dressed up like them old men

Drinking beer amd playing moon and forty-two

Like desperadoes waiting for a train

Like desperadoes 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, the son-of-a-bitch is coming

We're like desperadoes waiting for a train

Like desperadoes waiting for a train (4 times)