Apr 29 2004
Pancho & Lefty
A few days ago I heard Jim, live on Whole Wheat Radio, lying in bed with Esther, the morning after a long night out, lots of drinking, lots of music, lots of unashamed foolishness. He talked earnestly about the sugar content of certain snack foods. The sound of his voice and the quality of his conversation reminded me of a recording I’d made of Townes Van Zandt’s classic, “Pancho and Lefty.” I could picture Jim (or anyone) lying in bed hung-over, listening to this recording, a recording I made while in pretty much the same condition. It doesn’t do justice to the genius of Townes Van Zandt (and, therefore, I plan to remove it in a few days), but it could sound like a masterpiece if you’ve been drinking enough. For Jim.
UPDATE (Oct. 3/04): The song was removed a few days later. However, I just found this recording I did of “Pancho and Lefty” from January 2004. Although it’s a by-the-numbers performance of the song, it’s not nearly as bad as the version I removed, and I don’t mind posting it.
UPDATE: All the recordings have been removed.
I hope you don’t ever picture me lying in bed.
I listened to your song. I’m not one to enjoy that folk music style, or easy-listening, or whatever sort of branding you attach to it, but I have to admit that it was quite catchy. It just didn’t have a funky beat that I could bug out to.
To me, it seems to have a real hung-over quality, which is why hearing Jim on the radio reminded me of this recording. But it ain’t a good recording or a good performance–although it’s probably no worse than how Townes sounded near the end (for those who know about Townes Van Zandt). I posted it as a low-quality MP3 and plan remove it by the end of the weekend. I put it up, though, because I thought Jim might enjoy it. I certainly enjoyed listening to Jim discover the song live on the air, reading from this site, downloading the song while making a cup of coffee and rolling a cigarette, and then playing the song. Jim was so energized that the song seemed to shift the show down into a low gear for a couple minutes while it was playing (it is only an early in the morning, hung-over song), but it was a lot of fun listening to it all live and I’m glad it worked out.