pancho and lefty came out in 1972.
what year did pancho and lefty come out?
1972
pancho and lefty









































"pancho and lefty" is a song written by country music artist 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".









































section::::reception.









































the song has been covered by various artists, notably:









































bullet::::- emmylou harris then covered the song for her 1977 album, "luxury liner".









































bullet::::- also in 1977, hoyt axton recorded it on his album "snowblind friend".
pancho and lefty
emmylou harris covered the song on her 1977 album "luxury liner", and willie nelson and merle haggard took the song to number one on the country charts in july 1983 on their duet album "pancho & lefty". in the biopic "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'. 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. van zandt appears in the video for the song playing one of the mexican federales. "it was real nice they invited me," van zandt told aretha sills in 1994. "they didn’t have to invite me and i made i think $100 dollars 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. i mean it doesn’t come to me. but money’s not the question. i would like if i could write a song that would somehow turn 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 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 2007, "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".
the late great townes van zandt