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