Desperados Waiting for a Train

About Desperados Waiting for a Train

"Desperados Waiting for a Train" is a song written by Guy Clark and originally recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker for his 1973 album Viva Terlingua. It subsequently appeared on Rita Coolidge's 1974 album Fall into Spring, David Allan Coe's third album, The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy (1974), Tom Rush's album Ladies Love Outlaws the same year, before Clark's own rendition was released on his first LP, 1975's Old No. 1. Clark has stated that the song is about his grandmother's boyfriend named Jack who was a grandfather figure to him. The song was also covered by Slim Pickens in 1981 on his self-titled album (Picc-A-Dilly PIC-3484). The American country music group the Highwaymen released it as a single in September 1985. It was the second single from the album Highwayman. The song reached #15 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. Nanci Griffith recorded it for her 1998 album Other Voices Too (A Trip Back to Bountiful), accompanied by Clark, Jerry Jeff Walker, Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Eric Taylor. more »

Year:

2001

5:48

65 Views

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Yeah I played the Red River Valley
He'd sit in the kitchen and cry
Run the fingers through seventy years of livin'
"Wonder, if every well he'd drilled gone dry?"
We was friends, me and this old man
Desperados waitin' for a train
Desperados waitin' for a train

Soon as I could walk he'd take me with him
To a place called the Green Frog Cafe
There was old men with beer guts and dominoes
Lying 'bout their lives while they played
And I was just a kid, they all called me Sidekick
Desperados waitin' for a train
Desperados waitin' for a train

Yeah he's a drifter, he's a driller of oil wells
He's 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 girls
And our lives was like, some old Western movie
Desperados waitin' for a train
Desperados waitin' for a train

One day I looked up and he's pushin' eighty
He's got 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
Just drinkin' beer and playin' Moon and Forty-two
Like a desperado waitin' for a train
Like a desperado waitin' for a train

The day before he died I went to see him
Yeah I was grown and he was almost gone
We closed our eyes and dreamed us up a kitchen
We played another verse of that old song
Yeah Jack you know, that son-of-a-bitch is comin'

Like desperados waitin' for a train
Like desperados waitin' for a train
Like desperados waitin' for a train
Like desperados waitin' for a train
Desperados waitin' for a train
Desperados waitin'

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Jerry Jeff Walker

Jerry Jeff Walker (born Ronald Clyde Crosby on March 16, 1942 in Oneonta, New York.) is an American country music singer and songwriter. He is most famous for writing the song "Mr. Bojangles". Walker's prolific music career and his widespread musical influence have made him an iconic fixture of the Texas country music scene. more »

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