１９６７年にグレン・キャンベルが歌ってヒットした。その後日本では、フォークブームが到来して、私がカントリー・ミュージック好きになるきっかけとなった。日本のテレビ放送にも登場していた。
グレン・キャンベルは、1936年4月22日アーカンソー州に生まれる。1967年「ジェントル・オン・マイ・マインド」が全米でヒット、その年のグラミー賞のカントリー部門で優秀賞を受賞。 1969年に「トライ・ア・リトル・カインドネス」が日本でヒットして、日本人にも知られるようになった。2010年、74歳になってもコンサートをやっているようだ。
恋はフェニックスBy the time I get to Phoenix
By the time I get to Phoenix she'll be rising
She'll find the note I left hangin' on her door
She'll laugh when she reads the part that says I'm leavin'
'Cause I've left that girl so many times before
By the time I make Albuquerque she'll be working
She'll prob'ly stop at lunch and give me a call
But she'll just hear that phone keep on ringin'
Off the wall that's all
By the time I make Oklahoma she'll be sleepin'
She'll turn softly and call my name out loud
And she'll cry just to think I'd really leave her
Tho' time and time I try to tell her so
She just didn't know I would really go.
ジェントル・オン・マイ・マインドGentle on my mind
It's knowin' that your door is always open
And your path is free to walk
That makes me tend to leave my sleepin' bag
Rolled up and stashed behind your couch
And it's knowin' I'm not shackled
By forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that have dried upon some line
That keeps you in the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
That keeps you ever gentle on my mind
It's not clingin' to the rocks and ivy
Planted on their columns now that bind me
Or something that somebody said because
They thought we fit together walkin'
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 movin' 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 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 till I'm blind
But not to where I cannot see
You walkin' on the back roads
By the rivers flowin' gentle on my mind
I dip my cup of soup back from a gurglin' cracklin' cauldron
In some train yard
My beard a rustlin' 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 find
That you're waitin' from the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
Ever smilin', ever gentle on my mind
