View source for Pancho and Lefty

{{Short description|1972 country song}}
{{for|the album of the same name on which this song is featured|Pancho & Lefty (album)}}
{{Infobox song
| name     = Pancho and Lefty
| cover    =
| alt      =
| type     =
| artist   = [[Townes Van Zandt]]
| album    = [[The Late Great Townes Van Zandt]]
| released = 1972
| format   =
| recorded =
| studio   =
| venue    =
| genre    = [[Country music|Country]], [[Folk music|folk]]
| length   = {{Duration|m=3|s=40}}
| label    = [[Tomato Records|Tomato]]
| writer   = Townes Van Zandt
| producer = {{hlist|Kevin Eggers|[[Jack Clement]]}}
}}"'''Pancho and Lefty'''", originally "'''Poncho and Lefty'''",{{efn|When originally released in 1972 as a single by Townes Van Zandt<ref>{{Cite AV media notes |title=''"Poncho and Lefty"'' |title-link= |last= |first= |author-link= |first2= |last2= |author-link2= |others=[[Townes Van Zandt]] |url=https://www.discogs.com/release/8183703-Townes-Van-Zandt-Poncho-Lefty/image/SW1hZ2U6MjQ4NTY2ODc= |date=1972 |access-date= |chapter= |page= |pages= |at= |type= |publisher=United Artists Records, Inc. |id= |location= }}</ref> and on his ''The Late Great Townes Van Zandt'' album that same year,<ref>{{Cite AV media notes |title=The Late Great Townes Van Zandt |title-link= |last= |first= |author-link= |first2= |last2= |author-link2= |others=[[Townes Van Zandt]] |url=https://www.discogs.com/release/12976634-Townes-Van-Zandt-The-Late-Great-Townes-Van-Zandt/image/SW1hZ2U6Mzc3NTYwMjE= |date=1972 |access-date= |chapter= |page= |pages= |at= |type= |publisher=United Artists Records, Inc. |id= |location= }}</ref> the song title was spelled "'''P''o''ncho and Lefty'''".<ref>Donald Clarke. ''The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music.'' Penguin Books, 1990. pp. 518. {{ISBN|9780140511475}}</ref><ref>Richard Carlin. ''The Big Book of Country Music: A Biographical Encyclopedia.'' Penguin, 1995. p. 472. {{ISBN|9780140235098}}</ref>  Emmylou Harris's 1977 album ''[[Luxury Liner (album)|Luxury Liner]]''<ref>{{Cite AV media notes |title=Luxury Liner  |title-link= |last= |first= |author-link= |first2= |last2= |author-link2= |others=Emmylou Harris |url=https://www.discogs.com/release/11103938-Emmylou-Harris-Luxury-Liner-/image/SW1hZ2U6MzExNDA5MzI= |date=1977 |access-date= |chapter= |page= |pages= |at= |type= |publisher=Warner Bros. Records Inc. |id= |location= }}</ref> included a version of the song also spelled "Poncho".<ref>Nathan Brackett and Christian David Hoard. ''The New Rolling Stone Album Guide.'' Simon and Schuster, 2004. p. 366. {{ISBN|9780743201698}}</ref>  Initial releases of Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson's [[Pancho & Lefty (album)|1983 album]] were also called "Poncho & Lefty",<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=9iMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT37 "'Poncho And Lefty' Push."] ''Billboard.'' '''95'''.5. 12 February 1983. p. 42. {{ISSN|0006-2510}}</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=oSQEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT47 "Hot Country LPs."] ''Billboard.'' '''95'''.13. 26 March 1983. p. 48. {{ISSN|0006-2510}}</ref> but the title spelling was mixed (some labels read "Pancho", while liner notes read "Poncho"<ref>{{Cite AV media notes |title=Poncho & Lefty |title-link= |last= |first= |author-link= |first2= |last2= |author-link2= |others=Merle Haggard / Willie Nelson |url=https://www.discogs.com/release/15953043-Merle-Haggard-Willie-Nelson-Poncho-Lefty/image/SW1hZ2U6NDg5MDI3MzE= |date=1982 |access-date= |chapter= |page= |pages= |at= |type= |publisher= |id= |location= }}</ref><ref>{{Cite AV media notes |title=Poncho & Lefty |title-link= |last= |first= |author-link= |first2= |last2= |author-link2= |others=Merle Haggard / Willie Nelson |url=https://www.discogs.com/release/6411789-Merle-Haggard-and-Willie-Nelson-Poncho-Lefty/image/SW1hZ2U6MjI0MDQzNjE= |date=1982 |access-date= |chapter= |page= |pages= |at= |type= |publisher= |id= |location= }}</ref>) and changed in the years following the release of the title track as the albums's second single with the spelling "'''P''a''ncho and Lefty'''".<ref>{{Cite AV media notes |title=''"Pancho And Lefty"'' |title-link= |last= |first= |author-link= |first2= |last2= |author-link2= |others=Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard |url=https://www.discogs.com/release/13547233-Willie-Nelson-and-Merle-Haggard-Pancho-And-Lefty/image/SW1hZ2U6Mzk4NDI0NjY= |date=1982 |access-date= |chapter= |page= |pages= |at= |type= |publisher=CBS Inc. |id= |location= }}</ref>  The "Pancho" spelling has persisted and even some later releases of Van Zandt<ref>{{Cite AV media notes |title=The Late Great Townes Van Zandt |title-link= |last= |first= |author-link= |first2= |last2= |author-link2= |others=Townes Van Zandt |url=https://www.discogs.com/release/2680458-Townes-Van-Zandt-The-Late-Great-Townes-Van-Zandt/image/SW1hZ2U6NjI0MTU4NTk= |date=2003 |access-date= |chapter= |page= |pages= |at= |type= |publisher=The Tomato Music Works Limited |id= |location= }}</ref> and Harris's<ref>{{Cite AV media notes |title=Luxury Liner  |title-link= |last= |first= |author-link= |first2= |last2= |author-link2= |others=Emmylou Harris|url=https://www.discogs.com/release/2621399-Emmylou-Harris-Luxury-Liner/image/SW1hZ2U6MjgyMzE1MDU= |date=2004 |access-date= |chapter= |page= |pages= |at= |type= |publisher=Warner Bros. Records Inc. |id= |location= }}</ref> albums on CD have been altered to match the Haggard and Nelson hit.}} is a song written by American country singer-songwriter [[Townes Van Zandt]]. Perhaps his most well-known song, Van Zandt recorded his original version of this song for his 1972 album ''[[The Late Great Townes Van Zandt]]''.<ref>{{cite web|last=Beviglia|first=Jim|title=Townes Van Zandt, "Pancho and Lefty"|url=http://www.americansongwriter.com/2012/04/townes-van-zandt-pancho-and-lefty//|access-date=June 5, 2012|publisher=American Songwriter|date=April 30, 2012}}</ref> The song has been recorded by several artists since its composition and performance by Van Zandt, with a 1983 version by [[Willie Nelson]] and [[Merle Haggard]] reaching number one on the [[Billboard (magazine)|''Billboard'']] [[Hot Country Singles|country chart]]. In 2021, Van Zandt's version was ranked number 498 on Rolling Stone's [[Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time|500 Greatest Songs of All Time]].

==Music and lyrics==
{{More citations needed section|date=October 2024}}
The song is composed as a ballad of four stanzas which use the two-verse refrain: "All the Federales say they could've had him any day/ They only let him slip away out of kindness I suppose." The first two stanzas are sung back-to-back with the refrain being sung only after the second stanza. The verses of the first stanza introduce Pancho as a restless young soul who leaves home and his loving mother to seek his fortune south of the border. The verses of the second stanza describe him as a Mexican bandit, who "wore his gun outside his pants for all the honest world to feel". The third stanza tells of Pancho's eventual death in "the deserts down in Mexico" and implies that he was betrayed to the ''[[federales]]'' by Lefty in exchange for being allowed to return to the United States. Lefty spends the last years of his life in a hotel in [[Cleveland]], apparently regretful of his actions. The fourth stanza poetizes Pancho's life and appears to evoke sympathy for Lefty's attempted homecoming.

While Van Zandt did not intend for Pancho to be [[Pancho Villa]], he did 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, 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...and the real Pancho Villa was assassinated."<ref name="AustinPickers">1984 PBS series, "Austin Pickers". Ed Heffelfinger. ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZrAy6iXj7o&t=32s 0:00:32])</ref>

==Background and reception==
Like much of Van Zandt's output, the song went largely unnoticed at the time of its release on the album ''[[The Late Great Townes Van Zandt]]'' in 1972. Neither it nor its parent album made any music charts. In 1973, Lonnie Knight played with Van Zandt for a week at the Rubaiyat in Dallas, Texas. He brought this song back to Minneapolis with him and recorded it on his first album, ''Family In The Wind'', in 1974.

In 1977, [[Emmylou Harris]] covered the song on her album [[Luxury Liner (album)|''Luxury Liner'']]. Harris says she feels it is "her song",<ref name="Brown3">Margaret Brown (director). ''Be Here To Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt'' (motion picture). 2004. ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC5MTqfiKFk&t=4230s 1:10:30])</ref> and it was this recording of the song that Willie Nelson first heard.<ref>{{cite book |author=Graeme Thomson |title=Willie Nelson: The Outlaw |publisher=Random House |year=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rUMG6M2nRMoC&pg=PT345| isbn=9781448133413}}</ref>

[[Willie Nelson]] and [[Merle Haggard]] recorded a version for their July 1983 duet album ''Pancho & Lefty''. In the documentary ''[[Be Here to Love Me]]'', Nelson states that when he asked Van Zandt what the song was about Van Zandt replied that he didn't know. Nelson also recalls how his album with Haggard was nearly completed but he felt they didn't have "that blockbuster, you know, that one big song for a good single and a video, and my daughter Lana suggested that we listen to 'Pancho and Lefty.'<ref name="Brown2">[[Margaret Brown (film director)|Margaret Brown]] (director). ''Be Here To Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt'' (motion picture). 2004. ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC5MTqfiKFk&t=4165s 1:09:25])</ref> I had never heard it and Merle had never heard it." Lana Nelson returned with a copy of the song and Nelson cut it immediately with his band in the middle of the night but had to retrieve a sleeping Haggard, who had retired to his bus hours earlier, to record his vocal part.<ref name="Brown2"/>

The vocals were recorded in one take that night.<ref name="Scarnati131">Blase S. Scarnati. "Chapter 7: Shifting Time and Cinematic Images: Townes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson. Merle Haggard, and "Pancho and Lefty"." ''For the Sake of the Song: Essays on Townes Van Zandt.'' Ann Norton Holbrook and Dan Beller-McKenna. eds. University of North Texas Press, 2022. [https://books.google.com/books?id=sRJ1EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA131 pp. 131.] {{ISBN|9781574418705}}</ref> The next day, Haggard wanted to rerecord his part, but Nelson told him the song had already been sent to New York.<ref name="Scarnati131"/> Haggard later stated that the song was the only one he had ever recorded before "he really knew it".<ref name="Scarnati136">Blase S. Scarnati. "Chapter 7: Shifting Time and Cinematic Images: Townes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson. Merle Haggard, and "Pancho and Lefty"." ''For the Sake of the Song: Essays on Townes Van Zandt.'' Ann Norton Holbrook and Dan Beller-McKenna. eds. University of North Texas Press, 2022. [https://books.google.com/books?id=sRJ1EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA136 pp. 136.] {{ISBN|9781574418705}}</ref>

Van Zandt appears in the video for the song, playing one of the ''federales''.<ref name="Sills">Aretha Sills. [https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/muddy-waters-and-mozart-remembering-townes-van-zandt/ "Muddy Waters and Mozart: Remembering Townes Van Zandt."] ''Los Angeles Review of Books.'' 1 January 2012. Retrieved 10 August 2022.</ref> "It was real nice they invited me," Van Zandt told Aretha Sills in 1994.<ref name="Sills"/>  "They didn't have to invite me and I made I think $100 a day. I was the captain of the federales. And plus I got to ride a horse. I always like that.  It took four and a half days and that video was four and a half minutes long...The money goes by a strange life, or elsewhere."<ref name="Sills"/>

When released as a single, this version of the song topped the ''Billboard'' country chart. The royalties would provide Van Zandt with some badly needed income, though by all accounts he remained impervious to the song's success. One story involving the song that Van Zandt loved to tell was when he got pulled over for speeding in Berkshire, Texas, by two policemen, the first a blue-eyed white man with a crew cut, and his partner a bronze, dark eyed Mexican.<ref name="Sills"/> Although his driver's license was up-to-date, the inspection sticker had expired, and the bedraggled singer found himself in the back of the police cruiser.<ref name="Sills"/> As Van Zandt recounted on ''Austin Pickers'', "We got stopped by these two policemen 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..." The policemen explained that their police-radio code names were Pancho and Lefty and they let Van Zandt off with a warning.

The song is probably Van Zandt's most recognizable and is often covered. [[Steve Earle]] told John Kruth in 2004, "You won't find a song that's better written, that says more or impresses songwriters more."<ref>John Kruth. "Townes Van Zandt: The Self-Destructive Hobo Saint." ''Sing Out.'' '''48.2''' (Summer 2004). ([https://wripen.wordpress.com/2010/04/02/townes-van-zandt-the-self-destructive-hobo-saint/ pna])</ref> In the film ''Be Here To Love Me'', [[Kris Kristofferson]] recites the opening lines of the song and then marvels, "And I could think, 'That was me!'"<ref name="Brown1">Margaret Brown (director). ''Be Here To Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt'' (motion picture). 2004. ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC5MTqfiKFk&t=434s 0:07:14])</ref>

[[Bob Dylan]], whose album ''The Times They Are A-Changin''' had a major impact on Van Zandt,{{Citation needed|date=April 2015}} performed the song as a duet on television with Willie Nelson at Nelson's 60th birthday concert in 1993, which Andy Greene of ''Rolling Stone'' remembers as "the highlight of the night".{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}

==Video release==
{{No sources section|date=October 2024}}
A music video was released for the song in 1983, depicting [[Willie Nelson]] as Pancho, and [[Merle Haggard]] as Lefty. [[Townes Van Zandt]] also appears in a supporting role. Nelson's daughter Lana directed the video, the first for Nelson and second for Haggard, the first being for "Are the Good Times Really Over?" a year prior.

== Reception ==

The song reached No. 1 on ''Billboard''{{'}}s [[Hot Country Songs]] chart dated July 23, 1983.  The Willie Nelson release has sold 648,000 digital copies in the United States as of October 2019 since becoming available for download.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://roughstock.com/news/2019/10/43984-top-30-country-digital-singles-chart-october-7-2019 |title=Top 30 Country Digital Singles Chart: October 7, 2019|work=RoughStock|first=Matt |last=Bjorke |date= October 8, 2019 |access-date=October 11, 2019 }}</ref>
{{Infobox song
| name       = Pancho and Lefty
| cover      =
| alt        =
| type       = single
| artist     = [[Merle Haggard]] and [[Willie Nelson]]
| album      = [[Pancho & Lefty (album)|Pancho & Lefty]]
| B-side     = Opportunity to Cry
| released   = April 30, 1983
| format     =
| recorded   =
| studio     =
| venue      =
| genre      = 
* [[Country music|Country]]
* [[outlaw country]]<ref name="RS 1983">{{cite magazine|last= Sheffield|first= Rob|date= February 24, 2023|title=The 100 Best Songs of 1983, the Year Pop Went Crazy|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-songs-of-1983-1234681014/|access-date=September 4, 2023|magazine=[[Rolling Stone]]|quote=Two great country outlaws team up for a classic outlaw ballad: “Pancho and Lefty,” by Texas songwriter Townes Van Zandt.}}</ref>
| length     = 4:44
| label      = [[Epic Records|Epic]]
| writer     = Townes Van Zandt
| producer   = {{hlist|[[Chips Moman]]|Willie Nelson|Merle Haggard}}
| chronology = [[Merle Haggard]]
| prev_title = [[You Take Me for Granted]]
| prev_year  = 1983
| next_title = [[What Am I Gonna Do (With the Rest of My Life)]]
| next_year  = 1983
| misc       = {{Extra chronology
 | artist     = [[Willie Nelson]]
 | type       = singles
 | prev_title = [[Little Old Fashioned Karma]]
 | prev_year  = 1983
 | title      = Pancho and Lefty
 | year       = 1983
 | next_title = [[Why Do I Have to Choose]]
 | next_year  = 1983
}}
}}

===Legacy===
"Pancho and Lefty" was covered by [[Merle Haggard]] and [[Willie Nelson]]; it was the title track of their duet album ''[[Pancho & Lefty (album)|Pancho & Lefty]]'', and a number one country hit<ref>{{cite book |title= The Billboard Book Of Top 40 Country Hits: 1944-2006, Second edition|last=Whitburn |first=Joel |author-link=Joel Whitburn |year=2004 |publisher=Record Research |page=148}}</ref> that entered the [[Grammy Hall of Fame]] in 2020.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Grammy Hall of Fame |url=https://www.grammy.com/awards/hall-of-fame#p |publisher=Grammy Awards |access-date=7 Feb 2022}}</ref>

Members of the [[Western Writers of America]] chose it as the 17th-greatest Western song of all time.<ref name="Top100">{{Cite web |title=The Top 100 Western Songs |author=Western Writers of America |year=2010 |author-link=Western Writers of America |publisher=American Cowboy |url=http://www.americancowboy.com/culture/top-100-western-songs |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101019002745/http://americancowboy.com/culture/top-100-western-songs |archive-date=October 19, 2010 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In June 2004, ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' ranked "Pancho and Lefty" 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Country Songs of All Time".<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-country-songs-of-all-time-11200/41-townes-van-zandt-pancho-and-lefty-1972-17040/ |title = 100 Greatest Country Songs of All Time - Rolling Stone| magazine=[[Rolling Stone]] | date=June 2014 }}</ref>

In 2021, the original version was listed at #498 on [[Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time]].<ref>{{Cite magazine|date=2021-09-15|title=The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-songs-of-all-time-1224767/|access-date=2021-09-16|magazine=Rolling Stone|language=en-US}}</ref>

===Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard===

====Weekly charts====
{|class="wikitable sortable"
!align="left"|Chart (1983)
!align="center"|Peak<br />position
|-
{{singlechart|Billboardadultcontemporary|21|artist=Willie Nelson|access-date=June 20, 2021}}
|-
{{singlechart|Billboardcountrysongs|1|artist=Willie Nelson|access-date=June 20, 2021}}
|-
|align="left"|Canadian ''RPM'' Country Tracks
|align="center"|1
|}

====Year-end charts====
{|class="wikitable"
!Chart (1983)
!Position
|-
|US Hot Country Songs (''Billboard'')<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Billboard/80s/1983/BB-1983-12-24.pdf|title=1984 Talent Almanac|magazine=Billboard|volume=95|issue=51|page=TA-24|date=December 24, 1983|access-date=June 20, 2021}}</ref>
|align="center"|6
|}

==Notes==
{{Notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}


==External links==
* [http://ippc2.orst.edu/coopl/pancho_and.txt Chords and lyrics] from the [http://ippc2.orst.edu/coopl/tvzindex.html Townes Van Zandt Blue Sky Homepage]
* [{{AllMusic|class=song|id=t923152|pure_url=yes}} Song review] at [[Allmusic]]

{{Townes Van Zandt}}
{{Merle Haggard}}
{{Willie Nelson singles}}
{{George Canyon}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:1972 songs]]
[[Category:1983 singles]]
[[Category:2013 singles]]
[[Category:Townes Van Zandt songs]]
[[Category:Merle Haggard songs]]
[[Category:Willie Nelson songs]]
[[Category:George Canyon songs]]
[[Category:Male–female vocal duets]]
[[Category:Songs written by Townes Van Zandt]]
[[Category:Song recordings produced by Chips Moman]]
[[Category:Songs about Mexico]]
[[Category:Epic Records singles]]
[[Category:Universal Music Canada singles]]