Anyone can tell a story in a couple thousand words but if you want to tell a story in a song, you have to get down to the absolute minimum. Each word has to really need to be there, because nobody likes epic poems anymore. After you get a story down on paper, start trying to prune as much of it away as possible. Cut out everything that doesn't need to be there and try to make each word do double duty.

A really good example of this is Towns Van Zandt's song, The Ballad of Pancho and Lefty. I think this is one of the finest songs ever written because it speaks of the universal themes of love and friendship, betrayal and forgiveness. Monumental themes, and only a very few words. Townes was an awesome writer.

I think Joan Baez recorded "The Ballad of Pancho and Lefty" first and my impression listening to her was of just another protest song and the chorus, "All the Federales say, We could have had him any day. Only let him slip away, out of kindness, I suppose.", was supposed to be sung sarcastically. I thought the song was a modern highwayman story, a Robin Hood character chased down by the authorities and killed. But when I heard Willie Nelson and Meryl Haggard sing it, the song showed me a much different and deeper character.

"You were your Mama's only boy,
Her favorite one it seems,
She began to cry when you said Good bye,
And sank into your dreams.

Townes tells us of the other side of dreams by giving us the picture of sinking into one. Often dreams aren't noble or lofty. We all know people who seem to dream only of destruction, then get right on to making their dreams come true. "Dreams" is in a minor chord too, which reinforces the feeling.

Pancho was a Bandit boy,
His horse as fast as polished steel,
He wore his gun outside his pants,
For all the honest world to feel.

This verse is really fine. Using the term "honest world" gives the song an archaic feel because it is an old term not used much anymore. Ending the line with the word "feel" is very powerful and unexpected. I think songs are best when they evoke an emotional response, and this line perfectly describes the emotional response of seeing a young man with a gun.

The next verse tells of Lefty's betrayal of his friend Pancho. The last line is, "Nobody heard his dying words, but that's the way it goes." , which is the sad picture of someone who dies alone. The next verse is about Lefty and shows the bitter result of betrayal on the betrayer. Again he used an archaic line from the old west, "bit the dust".

Lefty he don't sing the blues,
All night long like he used to,
The dust that Pancho bit down south,
Ended up in Lefty's mouth.

The day they laid poor Pancho low,
Lefty split for Ohio,
Where he got the bread to go,
There ain't nobody knows.

The last verse ends the story, and again unites Pancho and Lefty in the mind of the listener by asking for prayers for both of them. This is almost never done, because people hold their grievances so dear, and it raises the song to a level where it can be sung in church as a hymn, and shows us it is never too late to forgive, Dr. Laura not withstanding.

The poets tell how Pancho fell,
And Lefty's living in a cheap hotel,
The desert's quiet, Cleveland's cold,
So the story ends, we're told.

Pancho needs your prayers, its true,
But save a few for Lefty too,
He only did what he had to do,
And now he's growing old.

Townes Van Zandt was an absolute master at telling a big story in only a few words.

© 2000 Jon Huntress
jhuntres@tenagra.com