one five-year-old girl around to do right. Then I've done good. That's what I care about." 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 policeman, the first a blue-eyed Aryan type with a crew cut, and his partner a bronze, dark eyed Mexican. 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. As Van Zandt recounted on Austin Pickers, "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..." 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 has become a staple for aspiring folksingers and country bar bands alike. Steve Earle told John Kruth in 2004, "You won't find a song that's better written, that says more or impresses songwriters more." In the film Be Here To Love Me, Kris Kristofferson recites the opening lines of the song – Livin' on the road my friend was supposed to keep you free and clean, now you wear your skin like iron and your breath's as hard as kerosene – and then marvels, "And I could think, 'That was me!'" Bob Dylan, whose album The Times They Are A-Changin''' had a major impact on Van Zandt, 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". Video release 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 (who incidentally was the one that suggested the recording of the duet) directed the