Gentle On My Mind

It's knowing that your door is always open
And your path is free to walk
That makes me tend to leave my sleepin' bag rolled up
And stashed behind your couch
And it's knowin' I'm not shacked by forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that have dried upon some line
That keeps you in the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry
That keeps you ever gentle on my mind.

It's not clinging to the rocks and I'd be planted on
Their columns now that binds me
Or somethin' that somebody said because
They thought we fit together walking
It's just knowin' that the world will not be cursin' or forgivin'
When I walk along some railroad track and find
That you're moving on the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry
And for hours you're just gentle on my mind.

Though the wheet fields and the clothes lines
And the junk yards and the highways come between us
And some other woman's cryin' to her mother
'Cause she turned and I was gone
I still run in silence tears of joy might stain my face
And summer sun might burn me till I'm blind
But not to where I cannot see you walkin' on the back roads
By the rivers flowing gentle on my mind.

I dipped my cup of soap back from a gurgling
Crackling caldron in some train yard
My beard a roughen coal pile and a dirty hat
Pulled low across my face
Through cupped hands round a tin can
I pretend I hold you to my breast and find
That you're waving from the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry
Ever smiling ever gentle on my mind.

That you're waving from the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry
Ever smiling ever gentle on my mind...