It's knowing that your door's always open and your path is free to walk
And it makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag, roll-up and stash behind your couch
And it's knowing I'm not shackled by forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that dried upon some of life
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, walk in
It's just knowing that the world will not be cursing or forgiving
When I walk along some railroad track and find
That you're waving from the back roads by the rivers of my memory
For hours you're just gentle on my mind
That's my Benny Martin honorary lick. I'd like to dedicate this to old Big Tag if he's
out there. See when I came, I'm in this business on account of Earl Scruggs and Benny Martin,
that's where it starts for me. I went to see them in 1954 at Shainer Rocks Park and
they walked out there in them two-toned shoes and I've never been the same since.
All the wheat fields and the clotheslines and the junkyards and the highways come between
Had some other woman crying to her mother cause she turned and I was gone
I still might run in silence, tears of joy might stain my face and a summer sun might
burn me till I'm alive. But not to where I cannot see you walking on the back roads
by the rivers flowing gentle on my mind. Let's all play it here.
Sonny?
The best musicians in the world here, huh?
I dip my cup of soup back from the gurgling crackling cauldron in some train yard
My beard a roughing in coal pile and a dirty hatful bowl across my face
Root cup cans round a tin can I pretend to hold you to my breast and find
That you're waving from the back roads by the rivers of my memory for hours you're just gentle on my mind
on my mind