[I first posted a version of this short essay on the forum at thumped.com and am reposting here in a money-for-old-rope effort (except I don't get any money - unless you want to send me some of course). I should also say that I'm no Townes expert. He's just a songwriter I like and one that I hope has influenced me in my own songwriting.]
In an ongoing series of profoundly unzeitgeist and untopical blog posts about songs I like, I thought for this one I'd focus on Townes van Zandt's most celebrated song, Pancho and Lefty, which is ostensibly about two banditos, as he said himself. I say his most celebrated but really, Townes never got that famous and I think it was Merle Haggard, Willy Nelson and others who covered it that made this song well known. But if you want to hear the song the way it should be sung, listen to the original by Townes himself (or the acoustic version from Heartworn Highways).
For a while I couldn't really figure out what was special about his song. I preferred his other, more dynamic or dramatic songs like Waiting Around To Die or Saint John the Gambler. But then one day it just clicked and I realised that this really is one of his finest.
On that note, it's worth saying that this is a Tex-Mex song, and you have all the ambiguity around that. There's the knowledge that Townes Van Zandt was of an important Texan family who had associations with the Alamo and was a wayward son of that family. But also, I guess like with Cormac McCarthy books, staging it on the border elevates it; you have that sort of classic feel, that this is bigger than just an American story, not just a cowboy story. It's a story for the ages. And I think he pulls it off.
Aside from the lyrics, with the Mexican Federales, but also the desert and Ohio, you have the Mexican trumpets juxtaposed against the country picking and Texan accent. That's very appealing but also it makes you feel that this is rooted in a tradition before there was "country music", if that makes sense. It's more a "cowboy song" or a "traditional American song". Or even before all that. TVZ wrote a lot of songs that were different than any other country songwriter's, and this is very much that type; I feel it's quite biblical, or arch-philosophical, but set in modern-cowboy times. It's a "big theme" song, but within the context of simple, modern people with simple needs, and for me that places him up there with folks like Robert Burns or Dylan Thomas rather than, say, Hank Williams (not to take away from Hank of course).
As for what it's about, there's lots of levels. If you want, you can take it to be a song about two goofball thieves whose crimes are so pathetic that the Federales can't be bothered to chase them down. Pancho is the hero, a sort of "honest thief", and he dies, and Lefty splits to Ohio and spends his last days lonely. It works fine as that.
But if you dig a bit deeper you see that it's actually about Lefty, who I expect is named that as he's the sinister figure in the story (which has four characters, excluding the narrator - which is a lot for a song) and "sinistre" means left. Lefty either kills or rats out Pancho, who it would seem was his friend and bandit partner, or maybe even his brother, and claims a small reward. So he commits the ultimate betrayal, which you could say is reflective of Cain and Abel, or Judas and Jesus, say. And there are lots of little vignettes throughout the song where we see Lefty sitting in a run-down hotel, unable to find any solace for his betrayal, unable to overcome his guilt. But the crucial bit is that TVZ says that Lefty is deserving of forgiveness from 'us', that is, the listeners. In other words, the most abject sinners are due forgiveness, whether it's Cain or Judas or Lefty or TVZ himself. Having a dusty western song centred on forgiveness with, I would say, fairly clear biblical allusions, again elevates it. It gives to the idea of America (the America of cowboys, horses and big sky) an appropriate grandeur that it doesn't normally receive in country songs.
The Federales appear to represent the gods in classical stories, or 'God' of biblical ones, in that they are all-powerful and see things from a grand perspective. They're represented by the distant mariachi trumpets in the original recording, which are Mexican in character but also representative of heaven, at least in the European tradition - the heraldic angels. These Federales, or gods, are somewhat distant, maybe even a little detached, but ultimately forgiving in that the two boys' crimes are just not important in terms of the big picture. I feel that TVZ makes the point that regardless of whether you listen to what the old Federales say, it's up to you to decide whether Lefty deserves love, and he's saying he does. And knowing a little of his story, it makes sense that TVZ in his subversive way would side with the villain of the story.
The other character in the song is the mother, and that's very interesting because for ages I thought TVZ just started writing a song about a loveable kid who became a bandit - that is, Pancho - and then went on to write a song about what happened later, and just left it in because it sounded nice. But actually, TVZ often started his songs with little introductions or prologues that maybe summarised his meaning, and I think this is one of those. This prologue could be two things. Like I said, perhaps Pancho and Lefty were brothers, and Pancho was the favoured one, in which case the Cain and Abel parallels become stronger. But it could equally be about Lefty, in which case TVZ is making the stronger case for forgiveness in this prologue, as Lefty was deserving of a mother's love and is therefore deserving of ours. I reckon it's the second thing, and I think that because the boy in this scene strays from the righteous path and makes his mother cry, which is more Lefty's vibe than Pancho's.
Again, the mother might represent 'the gods' or perhaps mother Mary from the New Testament. Another weird aspect of this first verse, as a prologue to the drama to follow, is that it's all in the second person. I didn't get what was about for a long time. But then it occurred to me that he's talking to us, the listeners, and saying "you are Lefty". In other words, we're all sinners, he who casts the first stone, and all that stuff.
So that's my take. As I said, it's just mine. And of course all of this is meaningless without the context of the music and Townes's unique, melancholic delivery, which you either hear or you don't.
If you like the song I'd love to hear your take on it, so please get in touch or leave a comment below.