Thanks...one of my all-time favorite love songs sung by one of my favorite singers / guitarists. John Hartford wrote some incredibly beautiful and intriguing lyrics. It is so cool the way he wove in the beautiful variations of “you are gentle on my mind” in the last lines of each stanza.
“Gentle On My Mind”
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 shackled
By forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that are 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 clinging to the rocks and ivy
Planted on their columns now that bind me
Or something that somebody said
Because they thought we fit together walking
It’s just knowing that the world will not be cursing
Or forgiving when I walk along some railroad track and find
That you’re moving on the backroads
By the rivers of my memory
And for hours you’re just gentle on my mind
Though the wheat 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 might run in silence tears of joy might stain my face
And the 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 dip my cup of soup back from a gurglin’
Cracklin’ caldron in some train yard
My beard a rustling, cold towel, and
A dirty hat pulled low across my face
Through cupped hands ‘round the tin can
I pretend to hold you to my breast and find
That you’re waiting from the backroads
By the rivers of my memories
Ever smilin’ ever gentle on my mind
Gentle on my Mind is poetry. And Glen Campbell singing and playing it is sheer artistry.
That said... I really love to listen to the song. There's something about the way Campbell executes it that makes me all wistful in spite of myself.
It’s a fantastic song.
It does though have the counter culture anti-marriage ethos.
“And it’s knowing I’m not shackled
By forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that are dried upon some line”
In other words marriage is just words and bonds that will be forgotten and dried ink stains on a marriage license.
“Gentle on My Mind” is a song written by John Hartford,[1] which won four 1968 Grammy Awards. Hartford himself won the award for Best Folk Performance and Best Country & Western Song (Songwriter). The other two awards Best Country & Western Solo Vocal Performance, Male and Best Country & Western Recording, went to American country music singer Glen Campbell for his version of Hartford’s song. It was released in June 1967 as the only single from the album of the same name. It was re-released in July 1968 to more success. Glen Campbell’s version has received over 5 million plays on the radio. Campbell used “Gentle on My Mind” as the theme to his television variety show, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour between 1969 and 1972. However, Dean Martin’s version, recorded in 1968, was more successful in terms of chart-position. The song was ranked number 16 on BMI’s Top 100 Songs of the Century