This song is by Guy Clark who died last year. It appears on the album "Old Number One" (1975)"I'd play the Red River ValleyAnd he'd sit out in the kitchen and cryAnd run his fingers through seventy years of livin'And wonder, "Lord, has ever' well I've drilled run dry?"We were friends, me and this old manLike desperados waitin' for a trainLike desperados waitin' for a trainHe's a drifter and a driller of oil wellsAnd an old school man of the worldHe let me drive his carWhen he's too drunk toAnd he'd wink and give me money for the girlsAnd our lives were like some old western movieLike desperados waitin' for a trainLike desperados waitin' for a trainFrom the time that I could walk he'd take me with himTo a bar called the Green Frog CafeThere were old men with beer guts and dominosLying 'bout their lives while they'd playedAnd I was just a kidThey all called his "Sidekick"Like desperados waitin' for a trainLike desperados waitin' for a trainOne day I looked up and he's pushin' eightyAnd there's brown tobacco stains all down his chinTo me he's one of the heroes of this countrySo why's he all dressed up like them old menDrinkin' beer and playin' Moon and Forty-twoLike desperados waitin' for a trainLike desperados waitin' for a trainA day before he died, I went to see himI was grown and he was almost goneSo we just closed our eyes and dreamed us up a kitchenAnd sang another verse to that old song"Come on, Jack, that son of a guns are comin' "Like desperados waitin' for a train (x4)."
He plays it live wonderfully here
Played here live by country music's legendary first "supergroup,", THE HIGHWAYMEN, featuring Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson.
Their cover of Guy Clark's "Desperados Waiting for a Train" appeared on their 1st album , Highwaymen (1985) and reached the Top 20. (Clark is frequently referred to as "The Fifth Highwayman".)
"I was just a kid, they called me Sidekick..."
