It's knowing that your door is always open

It's not clinging to the rocks and ivy planted on their

Though the wheat fields and the clothes lines and the junkyards

I dip my cup of soup back from the gurglin' cracklin'

And your path is free to walk

Columns now that binds me

And the highways come be-tween us

Cauldron in some train yard

That makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag rolled up

Or something that some-body said be-cause they thought

And some other woman's cryin' to her mother

My beard a roughnin' coal pile and a dirty hat

And stashed behind your couch.

We fit together walkin'

'Cause she turned and I was gone

Pulled low across my face

And it's knowin' I'm not shackled by for-gotten words and bonds

It's just knowing that world will not be cursing or for-giving

I still might run in silence, tears of joy might stain my face

Through cupped hands 'round a tin can I pre-tend

And the ink stains that are dried upon some line.

When I walk along some railroad track and find.

And the Summer sun might burn me 'til I'm blind

I hold you to my breast and find

That keeps you in the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry,

That you're waving from the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry

But not to where I cannot see you walkin' on the back roads

That you're waving from the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry

That keeps you ever Gentle On My Mind

And for hours you're just Gentle On My Mind

By the rivers flowin' Gentle On My Mind

Ever smilin', ever Gentle On My Mind