Desperados Waiting For A Train
The Highwaymen Lyrics

I'd play the Red River Valley
I played the Red River Valley on my guitar.

And he'd sit out in the kitchen and cry
The old man would sit in the kitchen and cry while I played.

And run his fingers through seventy years of livin'
He would reminisce about his long life.

And wonder, "Lord, has ever' well I've drilled run dry?"
He questioned if he had ever failed at anything in his life.

We were friends, me and this old man
I had a close friendship with the old man.

Like desperados waitin' for a train
Our friendship was like that of outlaws waiting for their next heist.

He's a drifter and a driller of oil wells
The old man drifted from place to place, drilling for oil to make a living.

And an old school man of the world
He had lived a long and varied life, with knowledge of the ways of the world.

He let me drive his car
He trusted me and allowed me to drive his car.

When he's too drunk to
When he was too intoxicated to drive himself.

And he'd wink and give me money for the girls
He would slyly give me money to spend on girls.

And our lives were like some old western movie
Our experiences felt like scenes from classic Western films.

From the time that I could walk he'd take me with him
He involved me in his life from a young age.

To a bar called the Green Frog Cafe
We would go to a local bar named the Green Frog Cafe.

There were old men with beer guts and dominos
The bar was full of older men with beer bellies playing dominos.

Lying 'bout their lives while they'd played
They would tell exaggerated stories about their lives while playing dominos.

And I was just a kid
I was just a young child at the time.

They all called his "Sidekick"
The old men at the bar referred to me as the old man's sidekick.

One day I looked up and he's pushin' eighty
One day, I realized the old man was almost 80 years old.

And there's brown tobacco stains all down his chin
He had tobacco stains on his chin from chewing tobacco.

To me he's one of the heroes of this country
I considered him a hero of the country.

So why's he all dressed up like them old men
I wondered why he dressed like the other old men at the bar.

Drinkin' beer and playin' Moon and Forty-two
He spent his days drinking beer and playing card games with the other old men at the bar.

A day before he died, I went to see him
I visited him the day before he passed away.

I was grown and he was almost gone
I had grown up, while he was nearing the end of his life.

So we just closed our eyes and dreamed us up a kitchen
We imagined ourselves in a kitchen together.

And sang another verse to that old song
We sang another verse to the Red River Valley.

"Come on, Jack, that son of a guns are comin' "
We envisioned someone named Jack coming to join us.

Like desperados waitin' for a train
Our imaginations put us in the shoes of outlaws waiting to rob a train.

Like desperados waitin' for a train
We continued to feel like outlaws waiting for their next heist.

Like desperados waitin' for a train
Our friendship was akin to that of outlaws waiting to commit a crime.

Like desperados waitin' for a train
We continued to feel like outlaws waiting for their next heist.