Pancho & Lefty
Townes Van Zandt
C
Living on the road my friend
G
Was gonna keep you free and clean
F
Now you wear your skin like iron
C G
Your breath as harsh as kerosene
F
You weren't your mama's only boy
C F
But her favorite one it seems
Em F C G
She began to cry when you said goodbye
F Am
And sank into your dreams.
C
Pancho was a bandit boy.
G
His horse was fast as polished steel
F
He wore his gun outside his pants
C G
For all the honest world to feel
F C F
Pancho met his match you know on the deserts down in Mexico
Em F C G F Am
Nobody heard his dying words, but that's the way it goes
F C F
All the Federales say they could have had him any day
Em F C G F Am
They only let him slip away out of kindness I suppose
C G
Lefty he can't sing the blues all night long like he used to
F C G
The dust that Pancho bit down south ended up in Lefty's mouth
F C F
The day they laid poor Pancho low Lefty split for Ohio
Em F C G F Am
Where he got the bread to go there ain't nobody knows
F C F
All the Federales say could have had him any day
Em F C G F Am
They only let him slip away out of kindness I suppose
C G
Poets tell how Pancho fell and Lefty's living in a cheap hotel
F
The desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold,
C G
And so the story ends we're told
F C F
Pancho needs your prayers it's true but say a few for Lefty too
Em F C G F Am
He only did what he had to do and now he's growing old
F C F
All the Federales say could have had him any day
Em F C G F Am
We only let him slip away out of kindness I suppose
F C F
A few gray Federales say could have had him any day
Em F C G F Am
We only only let him go so long out of of kindness I suppose
--
CHORD DIAGRAMS & NOTES
This is how I play the song. I pick it with a three-finger roll and
alternating bass. I think people usually play an Am on the next-to-last line
of the verse, but I think the Em sounds better, and it's easier to slide up
from there to an F. The bass sounds better if you play a full C chord (G in
bass) and a barre F. But I don't play the barre F on the next-to-last line of
the verse & chorus, where I slide up from the Em and pluck the F-C-G change:
Em F C G
E A D G B E E A D G B E E A D G B E E A D G B E
1 1 1
----------- ----------- ----------- -----------
3 4 2 2 2
----------- ----------- ----------- -----------
3 4 3 4 3 4
----------- ----------- ----------- -----------
Then I walk the bass down from the G to a barre F. I also walk the bass down
from the Am at the end of the verse to the F at the start of the chorus.
From chorus to verse (and between the first two verses where there is no
chorus), instead of going from the Am to a G, I walk the bass up the fifth
string to a full C chord.
source: Jim Crutchfield
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