Gentle On My Mind Lyrics - Roger Miller

It's knowing that your door is always open 

And your path is free to walk 

That makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag 

Rolled up and stashed behind your couch 

And it's knowing I'm not shacked by forgotten words and bons 

And the ink stains that have dried upon some line 

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

That keeps you ever gentle on my mind 

It's not clinging to the rocks and I'd be planted 

On their columns, now that binds me 

Or somethin' that somebody said because 

They thought we fit together walking 

It's just knowin' that the world will not be cursin' or forgiving 

When I walk along some railroad track and find 

That you're movin' on the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry 

And for hours you're just gentle on my mind 

Though the wheet fields and the clothes lines 

And the junk yards and the highways come between us 

And some other woman cryin' 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 blind 

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

By the rivers flowin' gentle on my mind 

I dipped my cup of soap back from a gurglin' 

Cracklin' 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 waving from the back roads by the rivers of my mem'ry? 

Ever smiling, ever gentle on my mind