Pancho & Lefty

Livin' on the road my friend was gonna keep you free and clean
Now you wear your skin like iron, your breath is 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 desert down in Mexico
Nobody heard his dyin' words, ah but that's the way it goes

All the Federales say they could have had him any day
They only let him hang around out of kindness I suppose

Now Lefty, he can't sing the blues all night long like he used to
The dust that Pancho bit down south it ended up in Lefty's mouth
The day they laid poor Pancho low, Lefty split for Ohio
Where he got the bread to go, ah 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

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 just did what he had to do and now he's growin' old

A few gray Federales say they could have had him any day
They only let him go so wrong out of kindness I suppose
A few gray Federales say they could have had him any day
They only let him go so wrong out of kindness I suppose