Gentle On My Mind

Let's knowing that your door is always open

and your path is free to walk

That makes me tend

to leave my sleeping bag rolled up

and stashed behind your couch

And it's knowing I'm not shackled

by forgotten words and bonds

And the ink stains

that have dried up on 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 clinging to the rocks

and ivy planted on their columns now

that binds me

Or something that somebody said

because they thought we fit together walking

It's just knowing that the world

will not be cursing or forgiving

when I walk along

some railroad track fine

That you're moving 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 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 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

Walking in the back roads

By the rivers flowing gently on my mind

I dip my cup of soup from a gurgling,

cracking cauldron in some train yard

My beard a roughening coal pile

And a dirty hat pulled low across my face

Through cupped hands around the tin can

I pretend to hold you to my breast and find

That you're wavin' from the back roads

By the rivers of my memory

Ever smiling ever gentle on my mind

gentle on my mind

you are gentle on my mind

woo woo woo yeah