Pancho and Lefty

Living on the road, my friend

Was gonna keep us free and clean

Now you wear your skin like iron

Your breath's as hard as kerosene

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 bent and bold

Horse was fast as polished steel

He wore his gun outside his pants

For all the honest world to feel

Lefty laid poor Pancho low

In a desert down in Mexico

Nobody heard his dying words

Yeah, but that's the way it goes

All the federales say

Could have had him any day

We only let him slip away

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

Ended up in Lefty's mouth

Well he laid poor Pancho low

Lefty split for Ohio

Where he got the bread to go

There ain't nobody knows

All the federales say

Could have had him any day

We only let him slip away

Out of kindness I suppose

Poets tell how Pancho fell

Lefty's living in a cheap hotel

The desert's quiet, Cleveland's cold

So the story ends, we're told

Pancho, nature prides us true

Save a few for Lefty too

He only did what he had to do

And now he's growing old

All the federales say

Could have had him any day

We only let him slip away

Out of kindness I suppose

A few grey federales say

Could have had him any day

We only let him go so long

Out of kindness I suppose