Pancho And Lefty Analysis
Pancho and Lefty, by Townes van Zandt, seems to be a story about two people who left their homes and families to live, “free and clean” on the road. They found out living on the road wasn’t so easy. It turned the two boys into men. Then they joined gangs and turned into hardened criminals. They did what they had to do in order to survive. In the end Lefty decided to turn Pancho in for a reward, “He got the bread to go.” But now Lefty is just alone, doing what he can and, “growing old.” Lefty is left in the end with no one and nothing. This is my first impression of the poem. The first stanza introduces Pancho as wanting to live out on the road living free and clean (but now he is a drunk): “Living on the road my friend, was gonna