Well, it's knowing that your door is always openAnd your path is free to walkThat makes me tend to leave my sleeping bagRolled up and stashed behind your couchAnd it's knowing I'm not shackled byForgotten words and bondsAnd the ink stains that have to write upon some lineThat keeps you in the back roadsBy the rivers of my memoryAnd keeps you ever gentle on my mindIt's not clinging to the rocksAnd ivy planted on their columnsNow that bind meOh, it's knowing that your door is always openOr something that somebody saidBecause they thought we fit together walkingIt's just knowing that the worldWill not be cursing or forgivingWhen I walk along some railroad track and findThat you're waiting on the back roadsBy the rivers of my memoryAnd for hours you're just gentle on my mindOh, take me homeWell, now that you've got meHopefully your room is emptyBut I don't have to turn to my own timeTo figure out how you see meI wrap me around a broken long lightAnd I realize I'm wrongSo I look through the restless dayAnd I see it's a lieLike a snowstormGirls with liesI don't understandLook around and I'll let you knowThough the wheat fields and the clotheslinesAnd the junkyards and the highways come between usSome other woman's crying to her motherCause she turned and I was goneWell, I still might run in silenceTears of joy might stain my faceAnd a summer sun might burn me till I'm blindBut not to where I cannot see youWalking on the back roadsBy the rivers flowing gentle on my mindWell, I dip my cup of soup backFrom a glass of wineTo a gurglin' cracklin' cauldron in some train yardMy beard a roughed-in coal pileAnd a dirty hat pulled low across my faceThrough cupped hands round a tin canI pretend to hold you to my breast and climbThat you're waving from the back roadsBy the rivers of my memoryEver smiling, ever gentle on my mindOh, you're gentle on my mind