Livin' on the road my friend   Is gonna keep you free and clean   And now you wear your skin like iron   And your breath is hard as kerosene      Weren't you mamma's only boy?   Her favorite one it seems   She began to cry when you said good bye   Sank to your dream      Poncho was a bandit boy   His horse was fast as polished steel   He wore his gun outside his pants   For all the honest world to feel      Poncho met his match, you know   On the deserts down in Mexico   Nobody heard his dyin' word   But that's the way it goes      All the Federals, they say   They could have had him any day   They only let him slip away   Out of kindness I suppose      Lefty he can't sing the blues   All night long like he used to   The dust that Poncho bit down south   Ended up in Lefty's mouth      The day they lay poor Poncho low   Lefty split for Ohio   Where he got the bread to go   There ain't nobody knows      All the Federals they say   We could have had him any day   We only let him slip away   Out of kindness I suppose      The poets tell how Poncho fell   And Lefty's livin' in cheap hotels   The desert's quiet, Cleveland's cold   And so the story ends we're told      Poncho needs your prayers   It's true, save a few for Lefty too   He only did what he had to do   And now he's growin' old      All the Federals, they say   We could have had him any day   They only let him go so long   Out of kindness I suppose      A few grey Federals, they say   We could have had him any day   We only let him go so long   Out of kindness I suppose