Song for the day. According to Wikipedia "Pancho and Lefty" is a song written by country singer and songwriter Townes Van Zandt. Often considered his "most enduring and well-known song," Van Zandt first recorded it for his 1972 album, The Late Great Townes Van Zandt.]. Emmylou Harris then covered the song for her 1977 album, Luxury Liner. Also in 1977 Hoyt Axton recorded it on his album Snowblind Friend. The song became a number one country hit in 1983 when Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson adopted it as the title track of their duet album Pancho & Lefty.Steve Earle performs "Pancho and Lefty" on his 2009 album Townes, which is composed of songs written by Townes Van Zandt, Earle's friend and mentor. Canadian country artist George Canyon recorded a version of the song with Blue Rodeo's Jim Cuddy on Canyon's album Classics II, released in November 2012. The song tells the story of a Mexican bandit named Pancho and a more enigmatic character, Lefty. The song tells of Pancho's death and implies that he was betrayed by his associate Lefty who was paid off by the Mexican federales. Although the lyrics are not exactly reconcilable with the historic details of the life and death of the famous Mexican revolutionaryPancho Villa, Van Zandt does not rule out the idea. In an interview, he recalled, "I realize that I wrote it, but it's hard to take credit for the writing, because it came from out of the blue. It came through me and it's a real nice song, and I think, uh, I've finally found out what it's about. I've always wondered what it's about. I kinda always knew it wasn't about Pancho Villa, and then somebody told me that Pancho Villa had a buddy whose name in Spanish meant 'Lefty.' But in the song, my song, Pancho gets hung. 'They only let him hang around out of kindness I suppose' and the real Pancho Villa was, uh, assassinated." In the same interview, recalling an altercation with law enforcement, Van Zandt recalled, "We got stopped by these two policeman and...they said 'What do you do for a living?', and I said, 'Well, I'm a songwriter', and they both kind of looked around like 'pitiful, pitiful', and so on to that I added, 'I wrote that song Pancho and Lefty. You ever heard that song Pancho and Lefty? I wrote that', and they looked back around and they looked at each other and started grinning, and it turns out that their squad car, you know their partnership, it was two guys, it was an Anglo and a Hispanic, and it turns out, they're called Pancho and Lefty..so I think maybe that's what it's about, those two guys... I hope I never see them again"

• published: 26 Jan 2014
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