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