It's knowin' that your door is always open
And your path is free to walk
That makes me tend to leave my sleepin' bag rolled up
And stashed behind your couch
And it's knowin' I'm not shacked by forgotten words and bons
And the ink stains that have dried upon some line
That keeps you in the backroads by the rivers of my memory
That keeps you ever gentle on my mind
It's not clingin' to the rocks
And I'd be planted on their columns now that binds me
Or something that somebody said
Because they thought we fit together walkin'
It's just knowin' that the world will not be cursin' or forgivin'
When I walk along some railroad track and find
That you're movin' on the backroads by the rivers of my memory
And for hours, you're just gentle on my mind
♪
Though the wheet fields and the clothes lines
And the junkyards and the highways come between us
And some other woman's cryin' to her mother
'Cause she turned and I was gone
I still run in silence, tears of joy might stain my face
And summer sun might burn me 'til I'm blind
But not to where I cannot see you walkin' on the backroads
By the rivers flowing gentle on my mind
I dipped my cup of soap back
From a gurgling crackling caltron in some train yard
My beard a roughen coal pile
And a dirty hat pulled low across my face
Through cupped hands 'round a tin can
I pretend I hold you to my breast and find
That you're wavin' from the backroads by the rivers of my memory
Ever smiling, ever gentle on my mind
That you're wavin' from the back roads by the rivers of my memory
Ever smiling, ever gentle on my mind