Throwback Thursday – John Hartford – “Gentle On My Mind”
Posted on | September 24, 2009 | 1 Comment
1. “Gentle On My Mind” (which won two Grammy awards in 1968 for John Hartford’s folk version and Glen Campbell’s pop version) was written after Hartford attended a screening of Dr. Zhivago. Not that the song has anything to do with the film, it just happened to come out right after that event, or so said Hartford. Whether there was a subconscious inspiration or not, a classic film begat a classic song, one eventually covered by Johnny Cash, Dean Martin, Aretha Franklin, and Elvis Presley.
2. Hartford expresses the peace and serenity that his lover provides him in a charming, down home way that reveals a little bit about the man he is:
“Just knowing that your door is always open and your path is free to walk/
that makes me want to leave my sleeping bag rolled up and stashed behind your couch”
We get a sense of the rambling man who wants to stick around. The second verse zooms in a little more to reveal that he is unable to resist the pull of the road, traveling by railroad across the country. Hartford elaborates on this in the third verse, when he reveals the true distance between the faithful lover and the rambler, who places himself at fault for leaving. Nevertheless, no amount of hardship can remove his memory from him, as even the loss of his sight wouldn’t take away his comforting mental picture. Finally we see the man around a fire in a railroad yard imagining that his cup of soup is his lover, and he pulls it close and imagines himself home.
3. The version of this song that struck me most was Lucinda Williams‘ take, which played over the credits of Talladega Nights and stopped me dead in my tracks until it had passed. Her cover musically evokes the peaceful feeling that Hartford’s rambling man carries in his mind, with her band’s restrained vamp and her cracked, near-crooning vocal track. Robert Earl Keen has said this to be his favorite song, saying in a recent Texas Monthly article that “You know how how a great book is like a tight bud of a flower that blossoms when you get to the part that’s really good? It’s the same with this song.”
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September 24th, 2009 @ 4:18 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Thanu. Thanu said: RT @soundscountry Throwback Thursday – John Hartford – Gentle on my Mind – hear Lucinda's version! – http://bit.ly/2ZGxuq [...]