Desperados & David Lee Roth

"You want a hero in the music world?  James Brown.  He brought a feeling to music without really using words.  He's just famous for his sound."  David Lee Roth

While wearing a vintage inspired "Van Halen" t-shirt this week, I couldn't help but notice the amount of times it brought on conversation.  The grocery store, the gas station, the bank. Seemed like everywhere I journeyed, again & again people felt compelled to tell me about the greatest concert ever! Such a cool & resounding ode to one of the most talented rock bands to ever hit the stage. So, when an older gentleman with a grey beard & Buddy Holly style glasses said to me, "Van Halen, huh?" I expected the same rhetorical concert re-enactment of David Lee Roth's spread eagle jump in striped leggings while grasping onto a  microphone stand.  And though Roth's legendary performance is one that I would LOVE to see?  I admit I was growing a bit weary, when to my surprise.."I've heard the name Eddie Van Halen, but I don't know the music. Any good?"  As I began to answer his question, he cut me short, "I'm not really a rock'n roller, but I love music. I might like them. Have you ever heard Guy Clark's Desperados Waiting For a Train?"
He  went on to tell me about the magnitude talent of Guy Clark's songwriting & how he is not only one of the greatest songwriters of his era, but of all time.  He stopped short. "I'm sorry, it's a beautiful song, I tend to go on & on about it, but it's a sad one too." The earnest melancholy in  his eyes was evident as he told me the song lyrics were not actually about waiting for a train, as the title would suggest, but rather about the complex love between a father & a son.  The "train" symbolized death & the parting of ways which we're all somehow waiting for, unaware.  "I hope you will check it out",  he said as he turned to walk away, "maybe you'll get something out of it."  With one last look back he uttered, "I miss my dad".  The entire interaction lasted but only a few seconds, but I felt as though I had just stood in the glow of a light beam with a perfect stranger who only wanted to share something he found to be beautiful & meaningful.  I felt compelled to listen to the song.  Getting into my car, I you tubed the song on my cell.  It was indeed familiar from the The Highwaymen version, but I had never actually listened..  I had never zoned in on the beauty of the lyrical story & the gentle, subtle delivery.  As I listened a few more times I could not help but think of my own dad & those who are so dear to my heart as a tear came to my eye.  I guess we really are desperados waiting for a train at times.
Of course desperado by definition means without hope and I like to think that with a little help from those we love & apparently a few strangers to light the way, hope still reigns supreme.

Wishing you moments with music.

Hepburn Hugs & Ric Ocasek Dreams,

xo
Birdee Bow

Guy & Susanna Clark 

Desperados Waiting for a Train by Guy Clark

I played the Red River Valley 
He'd sit in the kitchen and cry 
Run his fingers through seventy years of livin' 
And wonder, "Lord, why has every well I've drilled gone dry?" 

We were friends, me and this old man 
We's like desperados waitin' for a train 
Desperados waitin' for a train 

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 desperados waitin' for a train 
Like desperados waitin' 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 dominos 
Lying 'bout their lives while they played 
I was just a kid, they all called me "Sidekick" 
Just like desperados waitin' for a train 
Like 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 
Well to me he was a hero of this country 
So why's he all dressed up like them old men 
Drinkin' beer and playin' Moon and Forty-two 
Jus' like desperados waitin' for a train 
Like a desperado waitin' for a train 

The day 'fore 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 one more verse to that old song 
(spoken) Come on, Jack, that son-of-a-bitch is comin' 

We're desperados waitin' for a train 
Was like desperados waitin' for a train