GENTLE ON MY MIND
John Hartford, 1967
[Intro]
G G7
It's knowing that your door is always open
G Am
and your path is free to walk,
Am7
that makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag
D7 G
rolled up and stashed behind your couch.
[Verse 1]
G
And it's knowing I'm not shackled
G7
by forgotten words and bonds
G Am
and the ink stains that have dried if on some line,
Am7
that keeps you in the backroads
by the rivers of my mem'ry
Am D7 G
that keeps you ever gentle on my mind.
[Verse 2]
It's not clinging to the rocks and ivy
planted on the 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
and find that you are moving on the backroads
by the rivers of my mem'ry
and for hours you're just gentle on my mind.
[Verse 3]
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
Till' the join 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
[Verse 4]
I dip my cup of soup from a gurgling
Cracking cauldron in some train yard
I'm barely running' cold how
Have a dirty hat pulled low across my face
Who cupped hands around the tin cans
I pretend to hold you to my breast and find
That you're waving' from the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
Ever smiling never changes on my mind
