NP: townes van zandt

[David Casseres]

Good rendition from memory.  But that chorus you give at the end --

All the federales say,
"We could have had him anyday,
We only let him slip away,
Out of kindness, I suppose."

--actually comes round three times.  In Willy Nelson's version, it's
as you give it the first two times, and then the last time it's

All the federales say,
"We could have had him anyday,
We only let him go so long,
Out of kindness, I suppose."

--And it starts to look like another layer of story.  Turn now to
Townes Van Zandt's original lyrics, and the three choruses go

All the federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him hang around
Out of kindness I suppose
...
All the federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him slip away
Out of kindness I suppose
...
A few gray federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him go so wrong
Out of kindness I suppose

-- and there you get the complete backstory.  I guess Willy decided it
was too complicated, but I think it makes the song.

I heard Tracy Grammer and Jim Henry do the song a year ago in Sisters,
Oregon; it was so damn sad I can't even remember whoich lyrics they
used for the chorus.

On 8/16/06, Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ah...what the hell.
>
> Living on the road, my friend,
> Was gonna keep you free and clean,
> But now you wear your skin like iron,
> And your breath is hard as kerosene,
> you weren't you Mama's only boy,
> But her favorite one it seems,
> She began to cry when you said goodbye,
> And sank into your dreams,
>
> Poncho 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,
> But noone heard his dying words,
> But that's the way it goes,
>
> Lefty he can't sing the blues,
> All night long like he used to,
> The dust that Poncho bit down south,
> Ended up in Lefty's mouth,
> The day they laid poor Poncho low,
> Lefty split for Ohio,
> But where he got the bread to go,
> There ain't nobody knows,
>
> The poets tell how Ponco fell,
> And Lefty's livin' in a cheap hotel,
> The desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold,
> And so the story ends we're told,
> Poncho needs your prayers it's true,
> But say a few for Lefty too,
> He only did what he had to do,
> And now he's growin'  old,
>
> All the federales say,
> "We could have had him anyday,
> We only let him slip away,
> Out of kindness, I suppose."
>
>
>
>
> On 8/16/06, Dave Monroe <monropolitan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > So far as I know, I know TvZ only through
> > Tindersticks' cover of his "Kathleen," but, seeing as
> > it's my favorite track by them ... also, this ...
> >
> > http://www.townesthemovie.com/
> >
> > ... was recommended to me just yesterday, so ...
> >
> > --- "Thomas Eckhardt," < thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Van Zandt penned about twenty of the most beautiful
> > > songs ever written....
> >
> >
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