Well, 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 have to write upon some line
That keeps you in the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
And keeps you ever gentle on my mind
It's not clinging to the rocks
And ivy planted on their columns
Now that bind me
Oh, it's knowing that your door is always open
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 waiting on the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
And for hours you're just gentle on my mind
Oh, take me home
Well, now that you've got me
Hopefully your room is empty
But I don't have to turn to my own time
To figure out how you see me
I wrap me around a broken long light
And I realize I'm wrong
So I look through the restless day
And I see it's a lie
Like a snowstorm



Girls with lies
I don't understand
Look around and I'll let you know
Though the wheat fields and the clotheslines
And the junkyards and the highways come between us
Some other woman's crying to her mother
Cause she turned and I was gone
Well, I still might run in silence
Tears of joy might stain my face
And a summer sun might burn me till I'm blind
But not to where I cannot see you
Walking on the back roads
By the rivers flowing gentle on my mind
Well, I dip my cup of soup back
From a glass of wine
To a gurglin' cracklin' cauldron in some train yard
My beard a roughed-in coal pile
And a dirty hat pulled low across my face
Through cupped hands round a tin can
I pretend to hold you to my breast and climb
That you're waving from the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
Ever smiling, ever gentle on my mind
Oh, you're gentle on my mind