Hoyt Axton - Poncho & Lefty lyrics

Livin' on the road my friend Is gonna make you free and clean And now you wear your skin like iron Your breath is hard as kerosene Weren't you mamma's only boy? But her favorite one it seems She began to cry when you said, goodbye And it sank you to your dream Poncho was a bandit beau His horse was fast as polished steel He wore his gun outside his clothes For all the honest world to see Poncho met his match you know On the desert down in Mexico No one heard his dyin' word But that's the way it goes And all the Federales, they 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 do The dust that Poncho bit down south Ended up in Lefty's mouth The day, they lay poor Poncho low Lefty split for Ohio Where he got the bread to go Well, there ain't nobody knows Poets tell how Poncho fell And Lefty's livin' in a cheap hotel The desert's quiet, Cleveland's cold So the story ends I'm told Poncho 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 growin' old And a few gray Federales say We could have had him any day They only let him slip away Out of kindness I suppose Said a few gray Federales say We could have had him any day We only let him go so long Out of kindness I suppose