Lyrics to
Pancho & Lefty

This version of Pancho & Lefty was released by Emmylou Harris in 1977.

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Livin’ on the road my friend
Was gonna keep you free and clean
Now you wear skin like iron
And your breath’s 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
Wore his gun outside his pants
For all the honest world to feel
Well, Pancho met his match you know
On the deserts down in Mexico
And nobody heard his dyin’ words
Ah but that’s the way it goes

All the Federales say
Could of had him any day
Only let him any day
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 gop
There ain’t nobody knows

Well, the poets tell how Pancho fell
And Lefty’s livin’ in a cheap hotel
The dessert’s quiet and Cleveland’s cold
So the story end’s, we’re told
Pancho needs your prayer’s it’s true
But save a few for Lefty too
He just did what he had to do
And now he’s growin’ old
A few gray Federales say
Could have had him any day
Only let him go so long
Out of kindness I suppose

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Emmylou Harris has released many songs over the years besides Pancho & Lefty. Emmylou Harris released songs from 1969 to 2003 spanning across albums like Gliding Bird, Elite Hotel, Pieces Of The Sky, Luxury Liner, Quarter Moon In A Ten Cent Town, Light Of The Stable, Blue Kentucky Girl, Roses In The Snow, Cimarron, Evangeline, Last Date, White Shoes, The Ballad Of Sally Rose, Thirteen, Angel Band, Trio, Bluebird, Duets, Brand New Dance, At The Ryman, Cowgirl's Prayer, Wrecking Ball, Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions, Trio II, Red Dirt Girl, and Stumble Into Grace. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Emmylou Harris.

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About Lyrics and Pancho & Lefty by Emmylou Harris

The lyrics to Pancho & Lefty are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that Emmylou Harris used when the song was created in 1977. The lyrics to Pancho & Lefty have both easy-to-spot meanings and hidden metaphors that have been discussed by the music press and fans, but only Emmylou Harris and any collaborators know all of the inspirations for the song.

If you like etymology or breaking apart phrases and words, it is easy to understand the lyrics to Pancho & Lefty by Emmylou Harris. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Pancho & Lefty" means the words set to the music of Pancho & Lefty, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Emmylou Harris. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Pancho & Lefty and the lyrics to Pancho & Lefty are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Emmylou Harris who came here looking just for the lyrics to Pancho & Lefty, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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