Of all the songs written over the last century, there are a rare few that feel so traditional and true that they’re timeless, as if they could have just as easily been scratched down by candlelight in the early 1800s. Townes Van Zandt’s “Pancho And Lefty” is among this specific class of song, and the fact that there are some people who didn’t even realize Van Zandt wrote the song is more proof of this.
In fact, even performers who picked up the song in their own set, like Emmylou Harris, feel a sense of authentic ownership over the folk ballad. Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard made their own distinct versions of the track, further emphasizing its universal quality. Van Zandt wouldn’t reach the same level of stardom as the people who covered his music. But then again, one could argue that Van Zandt wouldn’t have wanted to even if he could.
He did, however, enjoy his time making a brief cameo in the music video for the 1983 rendition of the song he wrote years earlier in the early 1970s.
Townes Van Zandt Appeared in the Music Video for His Song
Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard were nearing the finish line of their mid-80s duet album when they realized they didn’t have a big hit anywhere in the track list. Unsure of where to go or what to do, Nelson’s daughter, Lana Nelson, suggested the men listen to a folk tune she liked called “Pancho And Lefty”. Though neither man had heard the song before, Nelson was the first to hear it that night. He loved it so much he cut a version immediately and woke up Haggard, who was sleeping nearby on his tour bus, to track his vocals.
When the time came to film a music video for the country icons’ duet version of “Pancho And Lefty”, they invited original songwriter Townes Van Zandt to play a role. “It was real nice they invited me,” Van Zandt later recalled in a mid-1990s interview with Aretha Sills. “They didn’t have to invite me, and I made, I think, $100 a day. I was the captain of the federales. 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,” Van Zandt continued. “I mean, it doesn’t come to me. But money’s not the question. I would like if I could write a sign that would somehow turn one five-year-old girl around to do right. Then I’ve done good. That’s what I care about.”
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