I just found my ipod after misplacing it a few weeks ago. It’s too small to really look for anywhere but where you expect it to be, so I had decided it was long gone when I found it hidden under the record player.
I’ve been obsessed lately with the song “Pancho and Lefty” (the version I have is performed by Willie Nelson). For some reason I only listen to it in the car (don’t ask me why…). Getting my ipod back meant I could listen to it again, and I did today. It’s the sad tale of a Mexican bandit named Pancho and his friend Lefty. Pancho meets an unfortunate death–and it’s implied that it was Lefty who betrayed him.
Later in the song, we are asked to pray for Pancho, but to “save a prayer for Lefty, too.” Though by all objective standards, he got the better deal, he’s left to live with the death of his friend on his conscious.
It’s easy to vilify as Morrisey sings, “It’s so easy to laugh, it’s so easy to hate.”
But as he continues, “It takes strength to be gentle and kind.” Sometimes it takes me a minute to see the other side, but even villains have pain and suffering as a consequence. We’re all human, after all.
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