[00:09.955]It's knowin' that your door is always open
[00:13.387]And your path is free to walk
[00:18.907]That makes me tend to leave my sleepin' bag
[00:22.235]Rolled up and stashed behind your couch
[00:27.874]And it's knowin' I'm not shackled
[00:30.163]By forgotten words and bonds
[00:32.714]And the ink stains that have dried upon some line
[00:39.387]That keeps you in the back roads
[00:41.434]By the rivers of my memory
[00:43.924]That keeps you ever gentle on my mind
[00:55.086]It's not clingin' to the rocks and ivy
[00:57.327]Planted on their columns now that bind me
[01:04.167]Or something that somebody said because
[01:06.895]They thought we fit together walkin'
[01:12.926]It's just knowing that the world
[01:15.295]Will not be cursing or forgiving
[01:17.262]When I walk along some railroad track and find
[01:24.070]That you're movin' on the back roads
[01:26.527]By the rivers of my memory
[01:28.832]And for hours you're just gentle on my mind
[01:40.001]Though the wheat fields and the clothes lines
[01:42.350]And the junkyards and the highways come between us
[01:49.046]And some other woman's cryin' to her mother
[01:51.982]'cause she turned and I was gone
[01:58.095]I still might run in silence
[02:00.542]Tears of joy might stain my face
[02:02.600]And the summer sun might burn me till I'm blind
[02:09.342]But not to where I cannot see
[02:11.854]You walkin' on the back roads
[02:13.959]By the rivers flowin' gentle on my mind
[02:25.638]I dip my cup of soup back from a gurglin' cracklin' cauldron
[02:30.054]In some train yard
[02:34.680]My beard a rustlin' coal pile
[02:36.801]And a dirty hat pulled low across my face
[02:43.555]Through cupped hands 'round a tin can
[02:45.658]I pretend to hold you to my breast and find
[02:52.403]That you're waitin' from the back roads
[02:54.761]By the rivers of my memory
[02:57.033]Ever smilin', ever gentle on my mind