Steady on, Ann post.The "but" is redundant
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Steady on, Ann post.The "but" is redundant
It's called ArtThe "but" is redundant
Never noticed Mick Farren co wrote this until now so I just had a first listen to The Deviants amazing version which somehow manages to beat Hawkwind and Motorhead's efforts - Wow !lost johnny hawkwind
You only get a single chance
The rules are very plain
The truth is well concealed
Inside the details of the game
You can see it coming
You can hear it from afar
It's pale and it flickers
Like a faded movie star
And up there in the castle
They're trying to make us scream
By sticking thumb tacks in her flesh
And cancelling the dream
Can you find the valium?
Can you bring it soon?
Lost Johnny's out there
Baying at the Moon
The time has come for you to choose
You'd better get it right
Berlin girls with sharp white teeth
Are waiting in the night
But you oughta really get some
It surely can't be hard
There's always trouble waiting
When you leave your own back yard
And underneath the city
The alligators sing
About how the puppets cannot dance
Since someone cut the strings
Run and get the morphine
For God's sake make it brief
Lost Johnny's out there
Looking for relief
Now Simon looks so evil
And you know he really tries
But every time he makes a play
That vital number dies
And Sally buys her underwear
From a store where no-one goes
She makes it big in photographs
On the strength of what she shows
And here inside the waiting room
The radio still screams
And we're all taking Tuenol
To murder our young dreams
Run and fetch your credit card
Try to make it quick
Lost Johnny's out there
Trying to turn a trick
Never noticed Mick Farren co wrote this until now so I just had a first listen to The Deviants amazing version which somehow manages to beat Hawkwind and Motorhead's efforts - Wow !
Pancho And Lefty
Townes Van Zandt
Living on the road my friend
Was gonna keep you free and clean
And now you wear your skin like iron
And your breath as hard as kerosene
Weren't your mama's only boy
But her favorite one it seems
She began to cry when you said goodbye
And sank into 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 dying words
Ah but that's the way it goes
All the Federales 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 laid poor Pancho low
Lefty split for Ohio
Where he got the bread to go
There ain't nobody knows
All the Federales say
They could have had him any day
We only let him slip away
Out of kindness, I suppose
The poets tell how Pancho fell
And Lefty's living in cheap hotels
The desert's quiet, Cleveland's cold
And so the story ends we're told
Pancho needs your prayers it's true
But save a few for Lefty too
He only did what he had to do
And now he's growing old
All the Federales say
We could have had him any day
We only let him go so long
Out of kindness, I suppose
A few gray Federales say
We could have had him any day
We only let him go so long
Out of kindness, I suppose
Bob Dylan did not write that song.Bob Dylan:
Who's got a beard that's long and white?
Santa's got a beard that's long and white
Who comes around on a special night?
Santa comes around on a special night
Special night – beard that's white
Must be Santa, must be Santa
Must be Santa, Santa Claus
Who wears boots and a suit of red?
Santa wears boots and a suit of red
Who wears a long cap on his head?
Santa wears a long cap on his head
Cap on head – suit that's red
Special night – beard that's white
Must be Santa, must be Santa
Must be Santa, Santa Claus
Who's got a big red cherry nose?
Santa's got a big red cherry nose
Who laughs this way: "Ho-ho-ho"?
Santa laughs this way "Ho-ho-ho"
Ho-ho-ho – cherry nose
Cap on head – suit that's red
Special night – beard that's white
Must be Santa, must be Santa
Must be Santa, Santa Claus
Who very soon will come our way?
Santa very soon will come our way
Eight little reindeers pull his sleigh
Santa's little reindeer pull his sleigh
Reindeer sleigh – come our way
Ho-ho-ho – cherry nose
Cap on head – suit that's red
Special night – beard that's white
Must be Santa, must be Santa
Must be Santa, Santa Claus
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen
Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen
Carter, Raegan, Bush, and Clinton
Reindeer sleigh – come our way
Ho-ho-ho – cherry nose
Cap on head – suit that's red
Special night – beard that's white
Must be Santa, must be Santa
Must be Santa, Santa Claus
Must be Santa, must be Santa
Must be Santa, Santa Claus
Well, since you asked, Egg!What's Pancho and Lefty about @snakybus ?
so yeah - its about a cowboy then?Well, since you asked, Egg!
I feel bad doing this as half the joy of discovering a great song is figuring out what's great about it yourself, and also what it means to you. And of course what it means (in an emotive, non-analytical way) to me might be different than what that is for someone else (or they may feel nothing at all, which is fine). So as well as this being just my take on the lyrics, it's also based on my own take of how I feel about it generally, in other words, the vibe, and all kinds of things come into play there, like memories, family, America, and all that, as well as the music and how it fits into the pantheon of country music and so on.
Onthat note, it's worth saying that this is a Tex-Mex song, and you have all the ambiguity around that. There's the issue that Townes Van Zandt was of an important Texan family who had associations with the Alamo and was a wayward son of that family. But also, I guess like Cormac McCarthy books staging it on the border elevates it, you have that sort of classic feel, that this is bigger than just a cowboy story. It's a story for the ages. And I think he pulls it off. Aside from the lyrics, with the Mexican Federales, but also the desert and Ohio, you have the Mexican trumpets juxtaposed against the country picking and Texan accent. That's very appealing but also it makes you feel that this is rooted in a tradition before there was "country music", if that makes sense. It's more a "cowboy song" or a "traditional American song". Or even before all that. TVZ wrote a lot of songs that were different than any other country songwriter's, and this is very much that type; I feel it's quite biblical, or arch-philosophical, but set in modern-cowboy times. It's a "big theme" song, but within the context of simple, modern people with simple needs, and for me that places him up there with folks like Robert Burns or Dylan Thomas rather than, say, Hank Williams (not to take away from Hank of course).
As for what it's about, there's lots of levels. If you want, you can take it to be a song about two goofball thieves whose crimes are so pathetic that the Federales can't be bothered to chase them down. Pancho is the hero, a sort of "honest thief", and he dies, and Lefty splits to Ohio and spends his last days lonely. It works fine as that.
But if you dig a bit deeper you see that it's actually about Lefty, who I expect is named that as he's the sinister figure in the story (which has four characters, excluding the narrator - which is a lot for a song!) and "sinistre" means left. Lefty kills Pancho, who it would seem was his friend and bandit partner, or maybe even his brother, and claims a small reward. So he commits the ultimate betrayal, which you could say is reflective of Cain and Abel, or Judas and Jesus, say. And there's lots of little vignettes throughout the song where we see Lefty sitting in a run-down hotel, unable to find any solace for his betrayal, unable to overcome his guilt. But the crucial bit is that TVZ says that Lefty is deserving of forgiveness from "us", that is, the listeners. In other words, the most abject sinners are due forgiveness, whether it's Cain or Judas or Lefty or TVZ himself. Having a dusty western song centred on forgiveness with, I would say, fairly clear biblical allusions, again elevates it. It gives to the idea of America (the America of cowboys, horses and big sky) an appropriate grandeur that it doesn't normally receive in country songs.
The Federales appear to represent "the gods" in classical stories, or "god" of biblical ones, in that they are all-powerful and see the big picture. They're represented by the distant trumpets (in the original recording) which are both Mexican but also representative of heaven at least in the European tradition - the heraldic angels. These Federales, or gods, are somewhat distant, maybe even a little detached, but ultimately forgiving in that the two boys' crimes are just not important in terms of the big picture. I feel that TVZ makes the point that regardless of whether you listen to what the old Federales say, it's up to you to decide whether Lefty deserves love, and he's saying he does. And knowing a little of his story, it makes sense that TVZ in his subversive way would side with the villain of the story.
The other character in the song is the mother, and that's very interesting because for ages I thought TVZ just started writing a song about a loveable kid who became a bandit, that is, Pancho, and then went on to write a song about what happened later, and just left it in because it sounded nice. But actually, TVZ often started his songs with little introductions or prologues that maybe summarised his meaning, and I think this is one of those. This prologue could be two things. Like I said, perhaps Pancho and Lefty were brothers, and Pancho was the favoured one, in which case the Cain and Abel parallels become stronger. But it could equally be about Lefty, in which case TVZ is making the stronger case for forgiveness in this prologue, as Lefty was deserving of a mother's love and is therefore deserving of ours. I reckon it's the second thing, and I think that because the boy in this scene strays from the righteous path and makes his mother cry, which is more Lefty's vibe than Pancho's. Again, the mother might represent "the gods" or perhaps mother Mary from the New Testament. Another weird aspect of this first verse, as a prologue to the drama to follow, is that it's all in the second person. I didn't get that for ages but it occurred to me that he's talking to us, the listeners, and saying "you are Lefty". In other words, we're all sinners, he who casts the first stone, and all that stuff.
So that's my take. As I said, it's just mine. And of course all of this is meaningless without the context of he music and his melancholic delivery, which you either hear or you don't.
That's it!so yeah - its about a cowboy then?
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