Pancho & Lefty

By townes van zandt

Living on the road my friend,

Is gonna keep you free and clean

Now you wear your skin like iron,

Your breath as hard as kerosene.

You weren't your mama's only boy,

But her favorite one it seems

She began to cry when you said goodbye,

And sank into your dreams.

Pancho 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.

Pancho met his match you know

On the deserts down in mexico

Nobody heard his dying words,

Ah but that's the way it goes.

All the federales 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 pancho bit down south

Ended up in lefty's mouth

The day they laid poor pancho low,

Lefty split for ohio

Where he got the bread to go,

There ain't nobody knows

The poets tell how pancho fell,

And lefty's living in cheap hotels

The desert's quiet, cleveland's cold,

And so the story ends we're told

Pancho needs your prayers it's true,

But save a few for lefty too

He only did what he had to do,

And now he's growing old