Pancho and Lefty

Living on the road my friend Was gonna keep you free and clean And now you wear your skin like iron And your breath 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 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 All the Federales say They could have had him any day We only let him slip away Out of kindness, I suppose 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 All the Federales say We could have had him any day We only let him go so long Out of kindness, I suppose A few gray Federales say We could have had him any day We only let him go so long Out of kindness, I suppose --- Pancho and Lefty - Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson