Townes Van Zandt – Pancho and Lefty

After the country post on Saturday…I looked through a lot of lists you all made. I listened…I want to thank Lisa for bringing this one up. It’s high time I did a post on Townes Van Zant. He was one of the best songwriters of the 20th Century.

What a songwriter Towns Van Zandt was…this song is probably best known for the Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson cover in 1983. The song peaked at #1 on the Country Billboard Charts and #1 on the Canadian Country Charts in 1983.

Willie Nelson has said that his and Merles duet album was almost complete but it lacked THAT song to put it over the top. Nelson said his daughter Lana suggested to him to listen to Pancho and Lefty by Townes Van Zandt. Willie then asked Townes what the song was about…and Townes said he didn’t know. Nelson then cut the track with his band. Willie and Merle had never heard that song before.

Nelson recorded it that night with his band and had to go and drag a sleepy Haggard (who was sleeping on his bus) to do the vocal part. The vocals were recorded in one take that night. They made a video of it and invited Townes to be in it. He was in the video as one of the Mexican  Federales.

The royalties from this song helped Van Zandt through the years. He told a story of getting pulled over by a couple of policemen. His car sticker was out of date so he got into the police car and they asked him what he does for a living. He said he was a songwriter and the policemen shook their heads. He then told them that he wrote “Pancho and Lefty” and their eyes lit up and they started to grin. Pancho and Lefty were the policemen’s police radio code names. They let Townes go after that.

Van Zandt did not like fame or what came attached to it. It’s been reported that he turned down opportunities to write with Bob Dylan. He respected Dylan a great deal but it was the celebrity part he didn’t want. He never ended up on a major label through his career…by choice. Steve Earle counted Townes Van Zandt as his mentor, and the two formed a close bond in the years since their initial encounter in 1978.

Unfortunately, Earle also adopted Van Zandt’s drug and alcohol habits. So bad, in fact, that Van Zandt actually visited Earle during a rare moment in which Townes was sober. Earle told him “I must be in trouble if they’re sending you.” Earle eventually named his son after Townes… Justin Townes Earle.

The original song was on Van Zandt’s 1972 album The Late Great Townes Van Zandt. 

For Willie’s Big 60 show, Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson sang Pancho and Lefty. Bob covered the song sporadically in concert during the 90’s. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked “Pancho and Lefty” 41st on its list of the “100 Greatest Country Songs of All Time.

Townes Van Zandt on being invited to be in the video: “It was real nice they invited me,”they didn’t have to invite me and I made I think $100 dollars a day. I was the captain of the federales. And plus I got to ride a horse. I always like that. It took four and a half days and that video was four and a half minutes long…The money goes by a strange life, or elsewhere. I mean it doesn’t come to me. But money’s not the question. I would like if I could write a song that would somehow turn one five-year-old girl around to do right. Then I’ve done good. That’s what I care about.”

Townes Van Zandt:  “I realize that I wrote it, but it’s hard to take credit for the writing, because it came from out of the blue. It came through me and it’s a real nice song, and I think, I’ve finally found out what it’s about. I’ve always wondered what it’s about. I kinda always knew it wasn’t about Pancho Villa, and then somebody told me that Pancho Villa had a buddy whose name in Spanish meant ‘Lefty.’ But in the song, my song, Pancho gets hung. ‘They only let him hang around out of kindness I suppose’ and the real Pancho Villa was assassinated.”

Pancho and Lefty

Living on the road my friend,
Is gonna keep you free and clean
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,
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 deserts down in Mexico
Nobody heard his dying words,
Ah but that’s the way it goes.

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

The poets tell how Pancho fell,
And Lefty’s living in cheap hotels
The desert’s quiet, 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

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

55 thoughts on “Townes Van Zandt – Pancho and Lefty”

  1. That’s a classic Texas County song right there. There’s several songs I really like from Townes better than this one but I think it’s his most covered. Steve Earle certainly did a lot to help bring his songs into greater prominence.

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    1. Thats the reason I’m starting off with this one…from him. He was a great writer and quite a character. I can’t believe I haven’t done one before.

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      2. That country thing I did Saturday…when I read the comments…I liked all of those artists that people mentioned so I thought…it was time.

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  5. I just got an email this morning from an old friend. The biggest Townes fan I know. Then I pop in here and Max is on the same wavelength. A sign for CB. Great tune buy one of my all time dudes. You have your favorite lyrics posts. The “kerosene ” lyric is imbedded in my head. Same as JJ Cale. I was happy for Townes making some cash from folks covering it. I think I have just about everything he’s recorded. He can be a depressing son of a bitch but I need a little shot of that once in a while just to keep me on my toes. Good pick Max.

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    1. Everyone needs a little kick down once in a while…keeps you grounded lol. He is a great songwriter and I would say it sucks he didn’t get noticed more when he was alive…but I think that is what he wanted.

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      1. Cant get anymore uplifting than ‘Waiting Around To Die’. ‘Tecumseh Valley’ is another blight and breezy tune but a CB favorite. A story song for you Max. ‘Be Here To Love Me’ is a doc you should check out if you havent already. There’s an earlier one that’s good also. There, you got me going on Townes.

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    3. CB your comment is appreciated and spot on about Townes. Nice to know you’re a big fan. I was led to him through Steve Earle’s cover of, “Tecumseh Valley.” I loved that song so much I looked into it to see who wrote it and never looked back.

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      1. Lisa. a few years ago a writer friend asked me to do a little bit with him On Townes. If you go to my old site and search Townes it will take you to a piece called ‘Hangin With The Ghost Of Townes’. If you enter, my friends (greenpete )take is linked on the post. You might find it interesting being a TVZ fan. You sent Max in a good direction.

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      7. I recently watched a netflix show, “Island of the Sea Wolves” that shows Vancouver Island. I watch on a small one-dimensional screen. You live it. Consider me impressed, CB. So much different than the Cincinnati I pictured you in.

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  6. Townes version is different from the Nelson/Haggard one, and I like them both. Talented people often carry the worst demons and the demons eventually win their inner battle. I didn’t know Townes, but I have friends in the biz that did and they say he was a genuine fellow. My band used to play the Willie version of Poncho and Lefty. One for the decades, Max.

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    1. I’ve noticed that Phil. Even the best local musicans I knew had some other problems going on.
      He was definitely a great songwriter…no doubting that.

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    1. Thats a great way to describe it. It’s hard to write story songs like this without being cheesy….and he did it. Most of the covers are good because they are working with timeless material.

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  8. I had only heard the Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan’s version. The Townes video is very emotional as he lives and breathes that song. The following you wrote is mind-blowing music folklore:
    ‘He said he was a songwriter and the policemen shook their heads. He then told them that he wrote “Pancho and Lefty” and their eyes lit up and they started to grin. Pancho and Lefty were the policemen’s police radio code names. They let Townes go after that.’

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  9. Townes was a transmitter. Hard to explain it. The way he describes how the songs come to him shows he was tapping in to something. He rejected the money and the fame because of his beginnings as part of a mega rich oil family. He was a holy man who traveled the music circuits and lived free, singing his unspeakably sad songs. You know, I appreciate Willie and Merle (I remembered it as Waylon and Willie singing it! and not sure I ever saw that video before) providing some $$ to Townes by making one of his songs a hit, but their version compared to Townes is like drinking tepid water vs. drinking shots of whiskey. Really appreciate you featuring one of my favorite country singers today, Max. (Forgot about Steve naming his son after him.)

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    1. The emotion in their version is just not to the level of Van Zandts. I liked the stories about him and that he went to Steve to tell him about drugs. Him and Steve seemed to be really close.
      He seemed like quite a character for sure.

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      2. Thank you so much…I was about to look for it.
        Here is something interesting. I posted this guy before…he is a laid back musician and he has some great stories and he has famous guys on his site…

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      3. Max, thanks for sharing the link. That is one crazy story. I read quite a few of the comments also and am beginning to think there is at least some kernel of truth to that story. I saw a biopic on Blaze and was not impressed with what I saw in it of him.

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      2. Thats what I like doing Lisa…we have talked about it before…I love so called “lost causes”…and if one person goes out and listens to him tonight…I’ll feel good.

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  11. You know everyone focuses on rock guys being all messed up but some of these country dudes were just as bad. Earle as in Steve really derailed all that momentum when it came crashing down on him in the early 90s…

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    1. Yes he did…my mother in law…I remember her saying yea all those rock guys are such druggies etc…I said really?
      What about those country guys you like? Trashbags filled with cocaine etc…oh yes…they can give rockers a run for their money.
      And…who wouldn’t want to hang with Willie for a few days?

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  16. Pingback: Pancho and Lefty – Willie Nelson & Bob Dylan (written by Townes Van Zandt) | Observation Blogger

  17. As far as I’m concerned, Emmy Lou Harris did the definitive version of this song. Years before Willie and Merle. I love her take. Definitely my favorite.

    I listened to a few recordings by Townes. Never got into them. Even with people like Guy Clark and Steve Earle preaching what a great songwriter he was. Don’t know if his voice or the production. I recognize he was a great songwriter, but sometimes greatness isn’t enough.

    There are, by the way, a handful of GREAT songwriters that are not mentioned, at least not on the list of songs or albums. I don’t know if you are familiar with them. Allow me to mention a few:

    Paul Siebel did two records for Elektra in the early 1970s. He wrote Louise, which a lot of people have covered. Bonnie Raitt did a take a strong version of “Any Day Woman” early in her career. I love both of the lps. Siebel has a voice that is hard to take, but is perfect for his songs. As for specific songs, I love ’em all but “She Made Me Lose My Blues” kicks off the first record in rip roaring style (also covered by Rick Roberts, although I never cared for his version), “Louise,” “Any Day Woman,” “Jack Knife Gypsy”… Oh so many more.

    Richard Thompson as a songwriter (not to mention as a guitar player or performer, and he excels at both) is one of the greatest talents you’ll ever hear. His “Vincent Black Lightning 1952” is one of the greatest songs of the last 50 years. My favorites also include “Two Left Feet:,” “Wall of Death” and “Feel So Good.”

    Tom Russell is a great songwriter. Andy Hardin used to back him up and Hardin is an amazing guitar player. As for great Tom Russell songs, I would start with his take on “Haley’s Comet” that he wrote with Dave Alvin, “Eyes of Roberto Duran”, “Where The Dream Begins” and, of course, “Gallo del Cielo.”

    (Three is enough for now. Lemme know if or when you want more. Or is there an e-mail I can send to so you can preview before posting?)

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