The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #6370 Message #2234443
Posted By: Rapparee
11-Jan-08 - 10:03 PM
Thread Name: Lyr ADD: Pancho and Lefty (Townes Van Zandt)
Subject: RE: The Ballad of Pancho and Lefty
Now Lefty he can't sing the blues All night long like he used to The dust that Pancho bit down South It ended up in Lefty's mouth The day they laid old Pancho low Lefty split for Ohio Where he got the bread to go Well there ain't nobody 'knows
Good Lord, the meaning of this is obvious! It's a Marxist tragedy!
"Lefty" is obviously an old Socialist, a member of the political Left. "He can't sing the blues" because he abandoned the Revolution and went to Ohio, which everyone knows is about as bourgeois a state as there is in the Union but he was probably bought off by the Capitalist Oppressors Of The Workers ("Where he got the bread to go...."). Pancho is symbolic of all of the workers of the world, a la Woody's "Deportee" song. Lefty is responsible not only for the death of the Revolution, but for the death of the workers (the "Panchos") and when the Workers "bit the dust" is ended up in Lefty's mouth because Lefty was responsible for it all.