Editing Pancho and Lefty (section)

==Background and reception==
Like much of Van Zandt's output, the song went largely unnoticed at the time of its release on the album ''[[The Late Great Townes Van Zandt]]'' in 1972. Neither it nor its parent album made any music charts. In 1973, Lonnie Knight played with Van Zandt for a week at the Rubaiyat in Dallas, Texas. He brought this song back to Minneapolis with him and recorded it on his first album, ''Family In The Wind'', in 1974.

In 1977, [[Emmylou Harris]] covered the song on her album [[Luxury Liner (album)|''Luxury Liner'']]. Harris says she feels it is "her song",<ref name="Brown3">Margaret Brown (director). ''Be Here To Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt'' (motion picture). 2004. ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC5MTqfiKFk&t=4230s 1:10:30])</ref> and it was this recording of the song that Willie Nelson first heard.<ref>{{cite book |author=Graeme Thomson |title=Willie Nelson: The Outlaw |publisher=Random House |year=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rUMG6M2nRMoC&pg=PT345| isbn=9781448133413}}</ref>

[[Willie Nelson]] and [[Merle Haggard]] recorded a version for their July 1983 duet album ''Pancho & Lefty''. In the documentary ''[[Be Here to Love Me]]'', Nelson states that when he asked Van Zandt what the song was about Van Zandt replied that he didn't know. Nelson also recalls how his album with Haggard was nearly completed but he felt they didn't have "that blockbuster, you know, that one big song for a good single and a video, and my daughter Lana suggested that we listen to 'Pancho and Lefty.'<ref name="Brown2">[[Margaret Brown (film director)|Margaret Brown]] (director). ''Be Here To Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt'' (motion picture). 2004. ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC5MTqfiKFk&t=4165s 1:09:25])</ref> I had never heard it and Merle had never heard it." Lana Nelson returned with a copy of the song and Nelson cut it immediately with his band in the middle of the night but had to retrieve a sleeping Haggard, who had retired to his bus hours earlier, to record his vocal part.<ref name="Brown2"/>

The vocals were recorded in one take that night.<ref name="Scarnati131">Blase S. Scarnati. "Chapter 7: Shifting Time and Cinematic Images: Townes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson. Merle Haggard, and "Pancho and Lefty"." ''For the Sake of the Song: Essays on Townes Van Zandt.'' Ann Norton Holbrook and Dan Beller-McKenna. eds. University of North Texas Press, 2022. [https://books.google.com/books?id=sRJ1EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA131 pp. 131.] {{ISBN|9781574418705}}</ref> The next day, Haggard wanted to rerecord his part, but Nelson told him the song had already been sent to New York.<ref name="Scarnati131"/> Haggard later stated that the song was the only one he had ever recorded before "he really knew it".<ref name="Scarnati136">Blase S. Scarnati. "Chapter 7: Shifting Time and Cinematic Images: Townes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson. Merle Haggard, and "Pancho and Lefty"." ''For the Sake of the Song: Essays on Townes Van Zandt.'' Ann Norton Holbrook and Dan Beller-McKenna. eds. University of North Texas Press, 2022. [https://books.google.com/books?id=sRJ1EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA136 pp. 136.] {{ISBN|9781574418705}}</ref>

Van Zandt appears in the video for the song, playing one of the ''federales''.<ref name="Sills">Aretha Sills. [https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/muddy-waters-and-mozart-remembering-townes-van-zandt/ "Muddy Waters and Mozart: Remembering Townes Van Zandt."] ''Los Angeles Review of Books.'' 1 January 2012. Retrieved 10 August 2022.</ref> "It was real nice they invited me," Van Zandt told Aretha Sills in 1994.<ref name="Sills"/>  "They didn't have to invite me and I made I think $100 a day. I was the captain of the federales. And plus I got to ride a horse. I always like that.  It took four and a half days and that video was four and a half minutes long...The money goes by a strange life, or elsewhere."<ref name="Sills"/>

When released as a single, this version of the song topped the ''Billboard'' country chart. The royalties would provide Van Zandt with some badly needed income, though by all accounts he remained impervious to the song's success. One story involving the song that Van Zandt loved to tell was when he got pulled over for speeding in Berkshire, Texas, by two policemen, the first a blue-eyed white man with a crew cut, and his partner a bronze, dark eyed Mexican.<ref name="Sills"/> Although his driver's license was up-to-date, the inspection sticker had expired, and the bedraggled singer found himself in the back of the police cruiser.<ref name="Sills"/> As Van Zandt recounted on ''Austin Pickers'', "We got stopped by these two policemen and...they said 'What do you do for a living?', and I said, 'Well, I'm a songwriter,' and they both kind of looked around like "pitiful, pitiful," and so on to that I added, 'I wrote that song Pancho and Lefty. You ever heard that song Pancho and Lefty?  I wrote that', and they looked back around and they looked at each other and started grinning..." The policemen explained that their police-radio code names were Pancho and Lefty and they let Van Zandt off with a warning.

The song is probably Van Zandt's most recognizable and is often covered. [[Steve Earle]] told John Kruth in 2004, "You won't find a song that's better written, that says more or impresses songwriters more."<ref>John Kruth. "Townes Van Zandt: The Self-Destructive Hobo Saint." ''Sing Out.'' '''48.2''' (Summer 2004). ([https://wripen.wordpress.com/2010/04/02/townes-van-zandt-the-self-destructive-hobo-saint/ pna])</ref> In the film ''Be Here To Love Me'', [[Kris Kristofferson]] recites the opening lines of the song and then marvels, "And I could think, 'That was me!'"<ref name="Brown1">Margaret Brown (director). ''Be Here To Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt'' (motion picture). 2004. ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC5MTqfiKFk&t=434s 0:07:14])</ref>

[[Bob Dylan]], whose album ''The Times They Are A-Changin''' had a major impact on Van Zandt,{{Citation needed|date=April 2015}} performed the song as a duet on television with Willie Nelson at Nelson's 60th birthday concert in 1993, which Andy Greene of ''Rolling Stone'' remembers as "the highlight of the night".{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}