Counting Crows - Pancho & Lefty lyrics

(Original by Townes Van Zandt) Livin' on the road, my friend Was gonna keep you free and clean But 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 as 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 No one heard his dyin' 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 livin' 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 growin' old All the federales say We could have had him any day They only let him go so long Out of kindness, I suppose A few old gray federales still say We could have had him any day We only let him go so long Out of kindness, I suppose