Editing Pancho and Lefty (section)

==Music and lyrics==
{{More citations needed section|date=October 2024}}
The song is composed as a ballad of four stanzas which use the two-verse refrain: "All the Federales say they could've had him any day/ They only let him slip away out of kindness I suppose." The first two stanzas are sung back-to-back with the refrain being sung only after the second stanza. The verses of the first stanza introduce Pancho as a restless young soul who leaves home and his loving mother to seek his fortune south of the border. The verses of the second stanza describe him as a Mexican bandit, who "wore his gun outside his pants for all the honest world to feel". The third stanza tells of Pancho's eventual death in "the deserts down in Mexico" and implies that he was betrayed to the ''[[federales]]'' by Lefty in exchange for being allowed to return to the United States. Lefty spends the last years of his life in a hotel in [[Cleveland]], apparently regretful of his actions. The fourth stanza poetizes Pancho's life and appears to evoke sympathy for Lefty's attempted homecoming.

While Van Zandt did not intend for Pancho to be [[Pancho Villa]], he did not rule out the idea. In an interview, he recalled, "I realize that I wrote it, but it's hard to take credit for the writing, because it came from out of the blue. It came through me and it's a real nice song, and I think, I've finally found out what it's about. I've always wondered what it's about. I kinda always knew it wasn't about Pancho Villa, and ''then'' somebody told me that Pancho Villa had a buddy whose name in Spanish meant 'Lefty.' But in the song, my song, Pancho gets hung...and the real Pancho Villa was assassinated."<ref name="AustinPickers">1984 PBS series, "Austin Pickers". Ed Heffelfinger. ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZrAy6iXj7o&t=32s 0:00:32])</ref>