Living on the road my friend,
Is gonna keep you free and clean.
Now you wear your skin like iron,
And 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 boys,
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,
And nobody heard his dying words.
Ah, but that's the way it goes.
And all the Federales say,
They could have had him any day.
They only let him hang around,
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 slip away,
Out of kindness, I suppose.
Well the poets tell how Pancho fell,
And 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 just did what he had to do,
And now he's growing old.
And a few grey Federales say
They could have had him any day.
They only let go so wrong,
Out of kindness, I suppose.
A few gray Federales say
They could have had him any day.
They only let him so wrong,
Out of kindness, I suppose.