Has the Willie/Merle version of 'Pancho and Lefty' always been totally ruined by those cheesey keyboards and I just never noticed it before?

the other weird thing is that singing it as a duet gives it this whole goodtimey partners-on-the-trail vibe that is totally (literally) betrayed by the lyrics.

I used to hate the keyboards but somehow I have come to absorb them and now consider them part of the soundtrack of a first-rate made-for-tv Western.

Where the hell are these keyboards in "Pancho and Lefty"??? I sure don't hear any!!
― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Sunday, May 7, 2006 8:16 PM (sixteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Alright, I GUESS it’s the intro riff. But it’s only ten seconds of the song, and it’s not that bad.

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/02/22/how-billy-graham-closed-down-dallas-and-co-wrote-townes-van-zandt-s-pancho-and-lefty/

Which includes this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1c3gHxaALw

After reading Michaelangelo Matos' book "Can't Slow Down" about the quick evolution in early-'80s radio formats, I wonder if the synthy intro was a strategy to get skittish radio programmers, with recent research that might have told them that listeners turn the station immediately after hearing an acoustic guitar, to at least give the track a few spins instead of ignoring it completely.

I love that keyboard; it cushions their voices.

xpost yeah, for inst there was a synth on Dolly Parton's version of "Deportee."

the original townes van zandt recorded version was a duet as well.

lol I am 16 years late in responding to this, but no, it was not.

Well, his acolyte Steve Earle ("he taught me to use clean needles") declared that "Townes was both": both characters, the Icarus badass and the leftover (who mebbe sold out the former, according to some listeners), the artist and the recessive self-abuser---so in that sense, you could say he was always a duet (also some suggestion of self-medicating bipolar, and for sure dark and light, as you can see and hear in the awesome xpost Heartworn Highways)

who mebbe sold out the former, according to some listeners

recessive self-abuser

TBF, this probably describes most of us.

For those out of the loop, this tune also is part of an amusing little bit in this dark horse sleeper ILX favorite show: Patriot on Amazon Prime: Let me Walk You Through Our Donnely Nut Spacing

recessive self-abuser

TBF, this probably describes most of us.

I mean, everyone does it, even if they say they don't.

In songwriter's case, re more specifically drug abuse, in character's case, general sense of survival as cold consolation in leftover twilight ("Cleveland's cold")

self-abuse as cold consolation brrrrr

It's often lonely

Excellent posts, dow

Sometimes I like to think of this song as a super-compressed version of The Wild Bunch.

Cool, now what we need is a super-compressed version of Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia.

Hasil Adkins to thread!

Reposting from Patriot thread.

The original lyrics of "Pancho and Lefty" say "only let him hang around" in the first chorus and later on it's "go so wrong" instead of "go so long" is that it? It's not just Willie and Merle though, also Emmylou Harris which is maybe who they heard it from iirc.

This tune never gets old.

Never realized this was produced by Chips Moman.

To answer the question: fucking no! The keyboards help.

Alfred so so so otm

He only did what he had to do
And now he's growing old

Live version on Rear View Mirror by Townes Van Zandt is the best version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMak5aEtQQc

Rear View Mirror is still my fave Townes record, a lot of those performances feel definitive

Back in Ann Arbor in the 90s, I bought a Townes cd called Rain on a Conga Drum, Live in Berlin. It has a great version of Pancho & Lefty preceded by a fun story about how he wrote it at some dump of a motel outside of Dallas. I don’t see an upload on YouTube so can’t share the story.

This story is oft told. They got stuck in the motel because of some Billy Graham rally, I believe, which caused a big traffic jam, so I he figured he'd used the downtime to write a song iirc

First karaoke song of the year!

Otis Gibbs has some good interview videos about Townes Van Zandt that are worth seeing.

I have ran into a couple people that have stories about TVZ's time in Louisville.