The Top Ten Americana Songs of All Time: 1st – Townes Van Zandt “Pancho and Lefty”

And so we come to the song that has been voted No 1 Americana Song of All Time… and who amongst you is really surprised?

In some ways, it is no surprise, being the most iconic song in the body of work by one of the most iconic and well-loved singer-songwriters of all time. Nearly every listener to this genre of music or every reader of this magazine probably knows the story inside out:

Two characters. One big betrayal. Pancho: the young outlaw who leaves home in search of fortune south of the border, as the song progresses, we see his journey to the “deserts down in Mexico” and the betrayal that comes at the hands of his companion. Our other character, Lefty, after turning Pancho over to the ‘federales’, spends his years in Ohio, existing in a state of regret. It’s a heartbreaking story.

It has appeared in a number of our Features: in For the Sake of the Song, Daisy Innes described the storytelling above, in Classic Clips, in which Fred Arnold featured a live Jason Isbell version and described the chorus thus: “The glorious chorus has echoes of the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969): “A few gray Federales say / We could have had him any day / We only let him go so long / Out of kindness, I suppose”, which might not be so far-fetched as the song was written within three years of the movie’s release. In Versions, Paul Villers highlighted the covers by Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard, and Steve Earle, just a very small sample of the countless number of cover versions of this song, which gained very little traction in its early days but which grew exponentially as the tally of versions (well over 40) found a listening audience with whom the song resonated. It appeared in various Essentials articles and Top this or Top that. It even appeared in a review of an album by ‘missing man of country music’ Daniel Antopolski, who was with Van Zandt when he wrote the song, after saving his life during a drug overdose episode.

Paul Kerr summarised it beautifully: “There’s little to say here which could add to the adulation this song has gathered over the years. I first heard it via Emmylou Harris, and her version led me to seek out the original telling. It’s a song which has been covered endlessly, but Townes’ original remains the best. It’s storytelling at its best; the song runs like a movie, a parched equivalent to the then-popular Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, but more akin to the violent escapades of Sam Peckinpah. Anyhow, as Van Zandt tells the tale of these two desperadoes and the betrayal implied, he digs deep into the American myth, the cowboys, the border, the western romance and dissects it with his poet’s scalpel”.

Andrew Frolish noted: “Townes Van Zandt possessed such a clean, clear voice that soared above his stunning finger-picked guitar. Those stories, told through the sheer poetry of his lyrics, remain so engaging and gently powerful. Pancho and Lefty on its own was an absolute triumph”.

Interestingly, only one writer voted it No. 1 in the last vote, but it did appear a record eight times, and only two writers had it in their top ten songs during the first round of this Feature. It is almost as if the voters’ minds only registered its greatness when faced with a final choice of song, or had temporarily forgotten its existence. It is, nevertheless, a worthy winner.

We’ll let Steve Earle have the last word: “You won’t find a song that’s better written, that says more or impresses songwriters more.”