Living on the road my friend Was gonna keep you free and clean Now you wear your skin like iron Your breath's 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 knows just let him go How far he'd gone
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 They only let him slip away Out of kindness I suppose
The poets tell how Pancho fell Lefty's living 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
A few gray federales say They could have had him any day They only let him go so wrong Out of kindness I suppose