Pancho and Lefty

Livin' on the road my friend

Is gonna keep you free and clean

And now you wear your skin like iron

And your breath is hard as kerosene

Weren't you mamma's only boy

Her favorite one it seems

She began to cry when you said

Good-bye sank to your dream

Poncho was a bandit boy

His horse was fast as polished steel

He wore his gun outside his pants

For all the honest world to feel

Poncho met his match you know

On the deserts down in Mexico

Nobody heard his dyin' word

Oh but that's the way it goes

All the Federales they say

They could have had him any day

They only let him slip away

Out of kindness I suppose

Lefty he can't sing the blues

All night long like he used to

The dust that Poncho bit down South

Ended up in Lefty's mouth

The day they lay poor Poncho low

Lefty split for Ohio

Where he got the bread to go

There ain't nobody knows

All the Federales they say

We could have had him any day

We only let him slip away

Out of kindness I suppose

The poets tell how Poncho fell

And Lefty's livin' in cheap hotels

The desert's quiet Cleveland's cold

And so the story ends we're told

Poncho needs your prayers it's true

Save a few for Lefty too

He only did what he had to do

And now he's growin' old

All the Federales they say

We could have had him any day

They only let him go so long

Out of kindness I suppose

A few gray Federales they say

Could have had him any day

We only let him go so long

Out of kindness I suppose