Eleanor:

Livin' on the road my friend

Is gonna keep you free and clean

And now you wear your skin like iron

And your breath is hard as kerosene You weren't your mama's only boy

Her favorite one it seems

She began to cry when you said

Good-bye, sank to your dreams Pancho was a bandit boy

His horse was fast as polished steel

He wore his gun outside his pants

For all the honest world to feel Pancho met his match, you know

On the deserts down in Mexico

Nobody heard his dyin' word

Oh but that's the way it goes chorus:

All the Federales, they say

They could have had him any day

They only let him slip away

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 lay poor Pancho low

Lefty split for Ohio

Where he got the bread to go

There ain't nobody knows chorus:

All the Federales they say

We could have had him any day

We only let him slip away

Out of kindness I suppose Ivanna:

The poets tell how Poncho fell

And Lefty's livin' in a cheap hotel

The desert's quiet, Cleveland's cold

And so the story ends we're told Pancho needs your prayers, it's true

Save a few for Lefty too

He only did what he had to do

And now he's growin' old chorus:

All the Federales, they say

We could have had him any day

They only let him go so long

Out of kindness I suppose A few gray Federales, they say

Could have had him any day

We only let him go so long

Out of kindness I suppose