Pancho & Lefty Livin' on the road my friend, is gonna keep you 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 a bandit boss, 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 in the desert down in Mexico And nobody heard his dyin' words, ah but that's the way it goes
All the Federales they say, 'Could'a had him any day' They only let him slip away, out of kindness I suppose
Lefty can't sing the blues all night long like he used to The dust that Pancho bit down south has 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 they say, 'Could'a had him any day' They only let him slip away, out of kindness I suppose
The poets tell how Pancho fell, and Lefty's livin' in a cheap hotel The desert's quiet, and 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
All the Federales they say, 'they could'a had him any day' They only let him go so long, out of kindness I suppose
A few gray Federales say, they could'a had him any day They only let him go so long, out of kindness I suppose