It`s knowin` that your door is always open
And you path is free to walk
That makes me tend to keep my sleeping bag rolled up
And stashed behind your couch

It`s knowin` I`m not shackled
By forgotten words and bonds
And the heat stains that have 
dried up on some lovin`
That keeps you in the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
It keeps you ever gentle on my mind 

It`s not clinging to the rocks and ivy
Planted on their columns mellowed by me
Or something that somebody said
Because they thought we`d fit together walking 
It`s just knowing that the world will not be cursin`
Or forgiving when I walk along
some railroad track and find
That you`re moving on the back roads 
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 junk yards 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
Till` the join might stain my face
And the summer sun might burn me `till I`m blind 
But not to where I cannot see you
Walking in the back roads
By the rivers flowing gently on my mind

I dip my cup of soup from a gurgling, 
cracking cauldron in some train yard
I`m barely runnin` cold how
Have a dirty hat pulled low across my face
Who cupped hands around the tin cans
I pretend to hold you to my breast and find
That you`re wavin` from the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
Ever smiling never changes on my mind