Let's know it, that your door is always open And your path is free to walkThat makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag rolled up and stashed behind your couchAnd it's knowing I'm not shackled by forgotten words and bondsAnd the ink stains that are dried upon some lineThat keeps you in the back roads by the rivers of my memoryThat keeps you ever gentle on my mindIt's not clinging to the rocks and ivy planted on their columns now that bind meOr something that somebody said because they thought we fit together walkingIt's just knowing that the world will not be cursed nor forgivenWhen I walk along some railroad track and findThat you're moving on the back roads by the rivers of my memoryEver hours you're just gentle on my mindThough the wheat fields and the clotheslines and the junkyards and the highways come between usAnd some other woman's crying to her mother cause she turned and I was goneOoh, I still might run in silence, tears of joy might stain my faceAnd the summer sun might burn me till I'm blindOh, but not to where I cannot see you walking on the back roads by the rivers flowing gentle on my mindI dip my cup of soup back from a gurgling, crackling cauldron in some train yardMight be at a wrestling, a cold towel, a dirty half-pulled loaf across my faceThrough cup tans round the tin can I pretend to hold you to my breast and findThat you're waiting from the back roads by the rivers of my memoriesEver smiling, ever gentle on my mindGentle on my mindYou are gentle on my mindYou are gentle on my mind