In 1967, Glen Campbell released “Gentle On My Mind”, a song that became one of his biggest hits. “Gentle On My Mind” was written by John Hartford. The song is the title track of Campbell’s sixth studio album.
Before Campbell released “Gentle On My Mind”, Hartford released his own version in 1967. Hartford was inspired to write “Gentle On My Mind” after watching the 1966 film, Dr. Zhivago.
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“Gentle On My Mind” says, “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 are dried upon some line / That keeps you in the backroads / By the rivers of my memory / That keeps you ever gentle on my mind.”
“It was like a stream of consciousness,” Hartford later reveals. Finishing the song in just 30 minutes, Hartford later admits even he doesn’t understand why “Gentle On My Mind” became such a success.
“It violates all the principles of pop songwriting,” Hartford concedes. “It’s a banjo tune; it has no chorus, (and) it has a lot of words so that it’s hard to sing.”
The Success of “Gentle On My Mind” for Glen Campbell
Campbell heard Hartford’s version of “Gentle On My Mind” on the radio and knew he wanted to record it for himself. When “Gentle On My Mind” was released, Campbell was still relatively new to having success as a solo artist. “Gentle On My Mind” is Campbell’s third Top 30 single at country radio.
“Gentle On My Mind” was the start of a pretty lengthy streak of successful singles for Campbell. After “Gentle On My Mind”, Campbell released “By The Time I Get To Phoenix”, “I Wanna Live”, “Wichita Lineman”, and more. They were all big hits on the radio for Campbell.
Campbell’s Gentle On My Mind record is also Campbell’s first album to go all the way to No. 1. “Gentle On My Mind” is the only single from the record. Campbell won two Grammy Awards, for both Best Country & Western Recording and Best Country & Western Solo Vocal Performance, Male, for “Gentle On My Mind”.
In 2014, The Band Perry also won a Grammy for their cover of this song. It appears in the Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me documentary. Numerous other artists have covered “Gentle On My Mind”, including Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, Patti Page, Aretha Franklin, and more.
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