It's knowing that your door is always open and your path is free to walk,
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That makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag rolled up and stashed behind your couch.
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And it's knowing I'm not shackled by forgotten words and bonds and the ink stains that have dried upon some line,
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That keeps you in the back roads by the rivers of my memory, that keeps you ever gentle on my mind.
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It's not clinging to the rocks and ivy planted on their columns now that bind me,
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Or something that somebody said because they thought we fit together walkin'.
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It's just knowing that the world will not be cursing or forgiving when I walk along some railroad track and find
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That you're moving on the back roads by the rivers of my memory and for hours you're just gentle on my mind.
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Though the wheat fields and the clotheslines and the junkyards and the highways come between us,
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And some other woman's crying to her mother 'cause she turned and I was gone.
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I still might run in silence, tears of joy might stain my face and the summer sun might burn me till I'm blind,
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But not to where I cannot see you walkin' on the back roads, by the rivers flowing gentle on my mind.
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I dip my cup of soup back from a the gurglin', crackling cauldron in some train yard;
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My beard a roughn'ning coal pile and a dirty hat pulled low across my face;
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Through cupped hands 'round a tin can, I pretend to hold you to my breast and find,
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That you're wavin' from the back roads by the rivers
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Gentle On My Mind
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Glenn Frey |