Livin’ on the road, my friend
Was gonna keep you free and clean,
Now you wear your skin like iron,
And your breath’s as hard as kerosene.
You weren’t your momma’s only son,
But her favorite one, it seems.
She began to cry when you said goodbye,
And sank into your dreams
Pancho was a bandit, boys
His horse as 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 a desert down in Mexico.
Nobody heard his dyin’ words,
But that’s the way it goes.
All the old 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.
And where he got the bread to go
There ain’t nobody knows.
All the old Federales…
Poets tell how Pancho fell,
And Lefty’s livin’ in a cheap hotel.
The desert’s hot and Cleveland’s cold,
So the story ends, we’re told.
Pancho needs your prayers, it’s true,
But say a few for Lefty, too.
He only did what he had to do;
Now he’s growin’ old.
The old grey Federales say
they could have had him any day
they only let him go so long [or wrong?]
out of kindness, I suppose