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What probably amounts to dozens of version of "Pancho and Lefty" Can't seem to get it out of my head. Seems like one of the best songs ever to me right now. The lyrics seem near flawless. And what does it actually mean?
 
What probably amounts to dozens of version of "Pancho and Lefty" Can't seem to get it out of my head. Seems like one of the best songs ever to me right now. The lyrics seem near flawless. And what does it actually mean?

The Emmylou Harris version is the one that gets to me. What does it actually mean? On one level, it's an interesting story. On another level it's about the moral choices people make. Although Lefty's still alive, "Cleveland's cold," while "poets tell how Pancho fell." Maybe there's something deeper, but it's plenty enjoyable at those levels.
 
The Emmylou Harris version is the one that gets to me. What does it actually mean? On one level, it's an interesting story. On another level it's about the moral choices people make. Although Lefty's still alive, "Cleveland's cold," while "poets tell how Pancho fell." Maybe there's something deeper, but it's plenty enjoyable at those levels.

I hate the instrumental arrangements on most of ELH's versions, but she sings it about as well as anyone does. There is a version that is strictly her and an acoustic guitar, which she is playing as I understand it. Her voice is amazing and I think she "understands" the lyrics.

Gillian Welch/David Rawlings do great versions. Bob Dylan is great. Willie Nelson to me not so great. I generally really like Willie Nelson's renditions of songs, but his phrasing and the like on this one seems off from what the words of the song might mean. I usually do not much like latter day Dylan vocals, but I have to say in the version of this he does with Willie, his phrasing and voice quality seem nearly mystically on point for the words of the song. Truly affecting. Lots of the lesser known folks versions on You Tube are quite good.

But my favorite versions are those of Townes van Zandt, when he is in good voice, which is not always. For one thing his guitar work on the song is amazing. He gets every nuance of every lyric just right to me. Even ELH sings some lines oddly to my thinking. I was trying to think whether she seems overwrought on this song. In some versions I think she does seem so, a bit.

I am not sure whether you got my reference re "what does it mean?" or not. I meant more literally, but I agree that the song is multi-leveled. Clearly it's about choices made and the results. And loss, and regret. And age and youth.

But the actual story it tells is famously enigmatic, and famously TVZ claimed he did not understand it, and basically felt like he channeled it from some place else. For instance, were Lefty and Pancho close? Close and then on opposite sides? Did Lefty betray Pancho? Or did they not know each other at all? I for one do not buy the latter reading of the song, but other than that it could be anything.

Lyric after lyric in the song just seems so evocative, so deep, yet to hang together so perfectly as a musical lyric. My favorite lines may be "the dust that Pancho bit down south, ended up in Lefty's mouth." "Breath as hard as kerosene" is another fascinating line. "Fast as polished steel." "He wore his gun outside his pants for all the honest world to feel." What a great line! "Feel" not see. The "honest" world. Does this mean that Pancho was honest, too, in that he revealed himself openly? "Pancho needs your prayers it's true, but save a few for Lefty, too." Pancho is long dead. Why does he need our prayers?

Interesting the lyrics some discussions of the song on-line, and there are many, get wrong! Some think the federales are referring to Lefty when they say they let him get away, but clearly not. Was there actually "kindness"or perhaps respect on their part? I suspect the line in largely sarcastic, but that there is underlying truth to it.

Some hear the first line in the present tense, but that makes no sense at all, and it is not the way TVZ sang it in any version I have heard. Although in at least one version I have heard he sings the last lines as letting "him go so wrong" rather than "go so long." It appears intentional, but I have no idea how to fit that into the rest of the song!
 
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Steel Panther: Weenie Ride
I'd include a link to it on Youtube, but the rules on profanity on this forum escape me & I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment. Feel free to look it up though, it's definitely worth the laugh.

For those of you not 'in the know', Steel Panther is a newish band ( first album was 2008ish ) but all their songs are in an 80's metal style. This is one of their ballads.
 
I've had Digitally Imported's Vocal Trance webradio on for hours now. It makes for perfect background music from the squeezebox. Energetic enough to be interesting but still calm enough to be relaxing.
 
...and that's no jive!!!!!!

tho he was married to the sister or neice (??) of one of the sweetest bluesmen and finger pickers of all time, the legendary Mississippi John Hurt

Neice, they say. "Lorenzo" by name. Long marriage and they are buried side by side. Despite lyrics like these:

You know, sometimes she gets unruly
An she act like she just don't wanna do
Sometimes she gets unruly
An she act like she just don't wanna -
But I get my 22-20
I cut that woman half in two

Mississippi John Hurt, a gentle voice and a sweet player, and by all accounts a sweet and gentle man!
 
Neice, they say. "Lorenzo" by name. Long marriage and they are buried side by side. Despite lyrics like these:

You know, sometimes she gets unruly
An she act like she just don't wanna do
Sometimes she gets unruly
An she act like she just don't wanna -
But I get my 22-20
I cut that woman half in two

Mississippi John Hurt, a gentle voice and a sweet player, and by all accounts a sweet and gentle man!

:) Neice, that's right Lorenzo (thanks)


"By the cold sleet and snow
No telling how much further I may go
Oh make me down, make me down
Make me a pallet down, soft and low
make me a pallet on your floor."

you nailed it, the sweetness is evident in his playing and voice, and Skip James' demons evident in the same!
 
I don't often listen to whole albums these days, I just let iTunes play what it thinks best, but since I bought "Clockwork Angels" by Rush last month, I find I have to listen to the whole thing from start to finish. It is a concept album, and in the words of one Kevin J. Anderson who is writing a novelisation of the album, it tells how "In a young man's quest to follow his dreams, he is caught between the grandiose forces of order and chaos. He travels across a lavish and colorful world of steampunk and alchemy, with lost cities, pirates, anarchists, exotic carnivals, and a rigid Watchmaker who imposes precision on every aspect of daily life."

It is easily their best work in many years and I am listening to it right now for about the 20th time.
 
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