D                          C B
I'd play the red river valley 
    A                              Bm
and he'd sit out in the kitchen and cry
             G   F#          Em A     D       Bm
and run his fingers through seventy years of livin'
            G         F#    Em                  A
and wonder lord, has every well I've drilled run dry
          A                 D
we were friends me and this old man.


chorus:
     Bm                        G
Like desperadoes waiting for a train,
     Bm                        G     F# Em A
Like desperadoes waiting for a train


E|---Th| e rest of the song goes the same way---


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 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 'bout their lives while they played 
I was just a kid, they all called me "Sidekick" 

Just like desperadoes waiting for a train 
Like desperadoes waiting for a train 

One day I looked up and he was pushin' eighty 
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 desperado waiting for a train 
Like a desperado waiting for a train 

Then 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 of that old song 
"Come on, Jack, that son-of-a-bitch is comin'" 

And we're desperadoes waiting for a train 
Like desperadoes waiting for a train
Like desperadoes waiting for a train
Like desperadoes waiting for a train