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Gentle On My Mind
Glen Campbell

It’s knowin’ 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 shackled
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 memory
That keeps you ever gentle on my mind

It’s not clingin’ to the rocks and ivy
Planted on their columns now that bind me

Or something that somebody said because
They thought we fit together walkin’

It’s just knowing that the world
Will not be cursing or forgiving

When I walk along some railroad track and find
That you’re movin’ on the back roads

By the rivers of my memory
And for hours you’re just gentle on my mind

Though the wheat fields and the clothes lines
And the junkyards and the highways come between us

And some other woman’s cryin’ to her mother
‘Cause she turned and I was gone

I still might run in silence
Tears of joy might stain my face

And the 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 flowin’ gentle on my mind

I dip my cup of soup back from a gurglin’ cracklin’ cauldron
In some train yard

My beard a rustlin’ coal pile
And a dirty hat pulled low across my face

Through cupped hands ‘round a tin can
I pretend to hold you to my breast and find

That you’re waitin’ from the back roads
By the rivers of my memory

Ever smilin’, ever gentle on my mind

Songwriters: John Hartford