There are literally hundreds of versions of “Pancho & Lefty” out there in the world. It’s Townes Van Zandt’s most popular tune by a good mile, an enigmatic tale of two outlaws on the run from the federales-- like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid if Robert Redford had shot Paul Newman in the back. The most popular version is by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, which hit Number One on the country charts in 1983. Emmylou Harris covered it, as did Steve Earle, Michael Hurley, and countless amateurs on YouTube. Just this past Record Store Day, Elizabeth Cook released a tender version on a b-side with Jason Isbell. It's taken that many people to even begin to figure out what exactly the song is about and how it works: Does it eulogize Pancho Villa, the notorious Mexican outlaw who reportedly had a friend named Lefty? If so, why does it not match up to the known details of his life? Is it an allegorical tale? A huckster’s hoax? A Mexican-American tall tale reduced to life-size proportions? Whatever it is, the song possesses a stark sadness as the lyrics recount not only the death of Pancho but also the last lonely days of Lefty. “Pancho needs your prayers, it’s true, but save a few for Lefty, too,” goes that last verse. “He just did what he had to do, and now he’s growing old.”
Such powerful understatement was typical of Van Zandt, who preferred to insinuate emotions rather than state them outright. That approach put him (and other songwriters like him) at odds with the sentimentality of mainstream Nashville in the 1970s, when such artists as Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, and even the Man in Black Himself, deep into his cornball phase, evoked the past in perfectly pastoral terms, as though rural poverty constituted paradise. Rootless and all but disowned by his oil-wealthy Texas family, Van Zandt was too much of a wanderer to indulge such nostalgia for simpler times. Instead, his songs address the present moment, whether implicitly or explicitly. That’s why so many people have read “Pancho & Lefty” as conceptual rather than actual: It’s so unconcerned with evoking a point in time that it becomes somehow timeless-- not merely relevant across decades, which it certainly has proved to be, but more interested in ideas rather than actual men. That’s what is meant when Van Zandt is described as “cosmic.”
There are two versions of “Pancho & Lefty” among the three new Van Zandt reissues from Omnivore Records, who hopefully have many more in the wings. Not only could the pair not be any more different from one another and still be the same song, but each version speaks to a different aspect of Van Zandt’s appeal. The first, from his 1972 album The Late Great Townes Van Zandt, was produced by Cowboy Jack Clement, who fills the space in the song with strings, mariachi horns, and all manner of studio tricks. The second, an alternate mix on the 2xCD demos and alt-takes set Sunshine Boy, is minimal by comparison, with only a handful of live instruments accompanying Van Zandt. The only elements that connect them are his unpretentiously hangdog vocals and that wandering piano line that never finds a place to rest and so enacts the song’s outlaw existentialism.
Here are two sides of Van Zandt, as clearly distinguished as if by state lines. The full studio version is decorous and even a bit gaudy, as was Cowboy Jack’s peculiar style, but it’s also moody and cinematic, with those horns evoking a wide-open plain that’s either a desert or a void. Historically, it’s been too easy to dismiss this version, as many Townes fans disregard Clement’s studio ministrations as overwrought and overbearing. Even Van Zandt himself disowned the horns and strings, claiming they were added without his say-so. And yet, on “Pancho & Lefty” as throughout The Late Great, Clement’s production tends to be as eccentric as Van Zandt himself. The lackadaisical plod of his cover of Hank Williams’ “Honky Tonkin’” implies a Music Row absurdism bolstered by the pots-and-pans percussion and fuzzed-out guitar solo. The sci-fi experiment “Silver Ships of Andilar” is self-consciously grandiose, almost like Serge Gainsbourg drinking Shiner and munching kolaches, and ominous synths interrupt the crushing desperation of “Snow Don’t Fall”, a devastating memorial to his girlfriend, who was murdered while hitchhiking to a recording session. If The Late Great is overwrought, as even Colin Escott claims in the new liners, it’s always overwrought with great purpose and conceptual weight.
The alternate mix of “Pancho & Lefty”, advertised on the tracklist as “without strings and horns,” points to another facet of Van Zandt’s catalog, which jibes more easily and naturally with listeners’ understanding of the Lone Star troubadour. It’s earthier and more direct-- a very real and gritty story rather than a parable-- as the Texan ponders the deep ache of severed friendship, abrupt betrayal, and lifelong regret. Because these demos and alt-takes emphasize austere arrangements that push Van Zandt’s vocals to the forefront, Sunshine Boy may be the ideal point of entry for listeners intimidated by his decades-spanning catalog as well as by his reputation as the ultimate songwriter’s songwriter. It includes many of his best songs, including what may be the best version of “To Live Is to Fly”. The guitar picking is clear and immediate, the vocals more fluid in their phrasings, accentuating the song’s casual melody. Van Zandt considered it among his best compositions, and it’s not hard to see why: In addition to conveying a simple philosophy of existence as a journey to some unknown destination, it evokes the transience of life lived out on the road, culminating in a few verses that are as close to perfect as Van Zandt-- or any other country musician, for that matter-- ever got: “It’s goodbye to all my friends, it’s time to go again,” he sings with affecting stoicism. “But think of all the poetry and the pickin’ down the line.”
Sadly, it’s impossible to miss that the themes Van Zandt explored in his lyrics are themes that played out in his own life, which was defined by rootlessness, loneliness, senseless tragedy, and unending remorse. The songs on these three reissues-- which are so of a piece and of a moment that they may best be thought of as a single, very persuasive box set-- all share a sense of motion, of always passing people by: the life of a touring musician certainly, but also the days of a man unmoored in the American West. Van Zandt had brief careers in college and the Air Force, which were cut short by bouts of depression, alcoholism, and insulin shock therapy. Despite his reputation among his peers as an ace picker and songwriter, his recording career was a non-starter, interrupted by a 10-year absence during which he laid low and played roadhouses around Texas but rarely, if ever, entered a studio. The characters in these songs-- especially those who serve as stand-ins for Van Zandt himself-- are always on the verge of leaving wherever they are, although he manages to cut that melancholy with the optimism that their paths will cross again. “Well, goodbye friends, it’s time to close, everybody knows that’s the way it goes,” he sings on “You Are Not Needed Now”, which loses none of its evocative power for never being too specific about its subject. “Where was it you lived in case I’m ever there?”
That song appears twice on Sunshine Boy and once on High, Low & In Between, but the alternate take, which features a piano intro and a band that knows the absolute best time to come in, may actually be the definitive version of the song, with a hymnal directness and a stoicism in the face of endless farewells. If The Late, Great sharpens the cosmic cowboy orchestrations and Sunshine Boy winnows the songs to their barest essentials, then High, Low and in Between more than lives up to its title. Unsurprisingly, Van Zandt inhabits the in-between so comfortably that this becomes one of the best country-rock records ever made, full of humor (“No Deal”), heartache (“Greensboro Woman”), and commiseration (“Highway Kind”). Softening that melancholy somewhat is a trio of country-gospel numbers that strike a celebratory note: “Two Hands” opens the album by explaining that his physical body makes possible spiritual salvation through music, while “Standin’” (a rearrangement of a traditional tune) suggests that his troubles extend well beyond his birth and death. In other words, his life is just an excerpt of a continuum of despair; the song itself is, cosmically, upbeat.
