Pancho & Lefty

Living on the road, my friend Was gonna keep you free and clean But now you wear your skin like iron Your breath, 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 boy His horse was fast as polished steel And he wore his gun outside his pants For all the honest world to feel Pancho met his match, you know On the deserts down in Mexico And nobody heard his dying words But that's the way it goes And 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 And all the federales say They could have had him any day They only let him go so long Out of kindness, I suppose Poets tell how Pancho fell Lefty's livin' in a cheap hotel The desert's quiet, Cleveland's cold And so the story ends, we're told Pancho needs your prayers, it's true Save a few for Lefty too He only did what he had to do Now he's getting old And all the federales say "They could have had him any day" They only let him slip away Out of kindness, I suppose Few grey federales say They could've had him any day They only let him go so long Out of kindness, I suppose