I have recently picked up, on Jed Marum's recommendation, Townes Van Zandt's Rear View Mirror Album, and I think its terrific. I really like Tecumseh Valley, Tower Song, To Live's To Fly, and Pancho and Lefty, and I'm in the process of learning to play them. Townes is the kind of singer I like, not skilled or polished, but he sings from his soul.

I revived this thread because of the interesting theories advanced pertaining to the song's meaning. I don't believe that the two characters are related to any particular real historic figures, but stand as examples of the lives of two rebels- one who lived brazenly and died heroically and young, the other who scratched by to survive and grow old. I think Townes saw himself in the Lefty character, unaware that his death would give him his own aura of myth. Its an irony that I think Van Zandt himself would have enjoyed.