Name: Pancho and Lefty
Duration: P00H04M16S
Description: A song written by Townes Van Zandt about a couple of traveling bandits and first recorded by him in 1972. Also the song that our cats are named after.

Pancho and Lefty

from Old Songs For The New Year by Margaret & Gregory

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about

A song written by Townes Van Zandt about a couple of traveling bandits and first recorded by him in 1972. Also the song that our cats are named after.

lyrics

Living on the road my friend
Was gonna keep you free and clean
Now you wear your skin like iron
Your breath's 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
sank into your dreams

Pancho was a bandit boys
His horse was fast as polished steel
Wore his gun outside his pants
For all the honest world to feel
Pancho met his match you know
On the desert down in Mexico
Nobody heard his dying words
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

All the federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him slip away
Out of kindness I suppose

The poets tell how Pancho fell
Lefty's livin' in a cheap hotel
The desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold
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
Now he's growing old

All the federales say
They could have had him any day
We only let him slip a-way
Out of kindness I suppose

A few gray federales say
could have had him any day
We only let him go so long
Out of kindness I suppose

credits

from Old Songs For The New Year, released January 1, 2017

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Margaret & Gregory Seattle, Washington

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