Written by: Guy Clark
Performed by: Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash & Kris Kristofferson
Appears on: Highwayman-1985, The Highwayman Collection-2000, et al.
[Kristofferson:]
I'd play the "Red River Valley,"
And he'd sit in the kitchen and cry.
And run his fingers through seventy years of livin'.
And wonder, "Lord, has ever' well I drilled run dry?"
We were friends, me and this old man.
[All 4:]
Like desperados waiting for a train.
Like desperados waiting for a train.
[Jennings:]
He's a drifter, 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 movies.
[All 4:]
Like desperados waiting for a train.
Like desperados waiting for a train.
[Nelson:]
From the time that I could walk he'd take me with him,
To a bar called the Green Frog Cafe.
And there were old men with beer guts and dominos,
Lyin' 'bout their lives while they played.
And I was just a kid, they all called his sidekick.
[All 4:]
Like desperados waiting for a train
Like desperados waiting for a train.
[Cash:]
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?
[Cash:]
Drinkin' beer and playin' Moon and Forty-two.
[All 4:]
Like desperados waiting for a train.
Like desperados waiting for a train.
[Nelson:]
The day before he died I went to see him,
I was grown and he was almost gone.
[Cash:]
So, we just closed our eyes and dreamed us up a kitchen.
And sang another verse to that old song.
[Kirstofferson-spoken :]
Come on, Jack, that son-of-a-gun's a-comin'.
[All 4:]
Like desperados waiting for a train.
Like desperados waiting for a train.
Like desperados waiting for a train.
Like desperados waiting for a train.
