“Gentle On My Mind”: Thanks For Letting Me Leave My Stuff Here -The Toast

“Gentle On My Mind”: Thanks For Letting Me Leave My Stuff Here

ByDaniel Mallory Ortberg

on March 28, 2016 in Music

< https://youtu.be/ETkzK9pXMio >

Babe it’s honestly the fact that you don’t ever expect me to visit you
that makes me feel so comfortable around you
like so comfortable I just leave my stuff indefinitely at your house
because you’re not interested in shackling me with rules and contracts like
“can you come get your stuff”
“Glen your stuff is always at my house but you never visit”
“Glen when you use my house as a storage unit but never want to spend time together it makes me feel like you think of me as a service and not as a friend”
anyhow you’re not like that
who even remembers the promises they make
I’m not a machine

anyhow you’re so gentle I put you in my brain river

like I’d never feel like we were ‘bound’ together just because some people have gardens
you know?
I’m not a building, I’m a man
you can’t just put a pillar on me and say “Oh, there he is”
I’m bigger than that
you get it
just because people say we look like a couple doesn’t mean you expect me to treat us like a couple and I really appreciate that
and it’s very important to me that the world not think badly of me just because I leave you a bunch to go make sure that all the railroad tracks are still there

I honestly think about you sometimes for actual hours
I don’t do anything about it, I just think about it and expect credit for the thinking, like thinking of all the nice things I could do for you
and isn’t that really the best kind of relationship there is

Look, yes, okay
there is technically “distance” between us because I keep “moving away”
but I’ve always appreciated that you don’t cry just because I’m gone
like other women
like other, lesser women, the crying kind with expectations
or I mean maybe you do
I wouldn’t know
I’m always gone haha
women always cry if you show up and create intense emotional experiences and then leave suddenly without a word and I appreciate that you’ve evolved past that completely normal reaction to intimacy

anyhow right now I’m hanging out in a literal trash heap eating soup out of a garbage bag but I’m thinking about hugging you which is basically the same thing
you’re welcome for hugging you

in my mind you never frown
thanks for that

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.

Comments (56)

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+61 Vote up Vote down

bread_and_roses 123p · 471 weeks ago

FUCKING THANK YOU.

+21 Vote up Vote down

Lil · 471 weeks ago

I LOVE U

+33 Vote up Vote down

aqwaplop 143p · 471 weeks ago

If anyone would like to hear two comedians (Todd Glass and James Adomian) just rag on this song for a hilariously long time, I got ya covered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu9SOEUBDG4

3 replies · active 471 weeks ago

+25 Vote up Vote down

littlehuntingcreek 135p · 471 weeks ago

See also "Last Thing on My Mind"

"I could have loved you better/didn't mean to be unkind/you know that was the last thing on my mind"

.

9 replies · active 470 weeks ago

+39 Vote up Vote down

lauralizabethm 119p · 471 weeks ago

TOO CLOSE, MALLORY.

(Or possibly too close, Glen Campbell? Perhaps the world of men is populated with Glen Campbells and I simply never realized before.)

2 replies · active 471 weeks ago

+33 Vote up Vote down

1nm 92p · 471 weeks ago

I went to high school with the sister of John Hartford, who wrote this song. He was tremendously funny, but, I think, he really was that guy.

2 replies · active 471 weeks ago

+29 Vote up Vote down

mbculver 114p · 471 weeks ago

Mr. Bittersweet and I were just arguing about this song at breakfast the other morning (it's on our mellow breakfast mix). He said it was romantic, I said...basically what Mallory said, only not as poetically.

Good to have this piece for further ammunition.

+114 Vote up Vote down

Zenkitty714 116p · 471 weeks ago

I've never understood this song. He could have, presumably, a home and a sexytimes ladyfriend and hot meals in a kitchen, and he's choosing to live a hobo life? I think he's legit delusional, and the lady is really the owner of a boarding house who lets him leave his bag there and she's never even touched him but she's the only person who's kind to him so he imagines they're really lovers with no strings attached and it keeps him from killing himself in despair. Which sounds terrible but it's better than taking the song at its word, because then he's awful and she's miserable.

5 replies · active 471 weeks ago

+34 Vote up Vote down

aintnothingtoit 105p · 471 weeks ago

This is a true work of art.
THE CRYING KIND WITH EXPECTATIONS.
Oh man oh man oh man. A+

+15 Vote up Vote down

chiaroscuromom 108p · 471 weeks ago

Isn't there a 60's folk song on the same theme? Not Dion's The Wanderer which was later covered by The Beach Boys, but a "hey thanks for the roll in the hay and no expectations, babe, you're the best" sort of deal?

(Also not Ramblin Man by the Allman Brothers, why are there so many songs on this theme, hmmm?)

9 replies · active 470 weeks ago

+13 Vote up Vote down

OneLeftGlove 86p · 471 weeks ago

Oh, Mallory. You have no idea how much I needed this right now.

+18 Vote up Vote down

heyheyemkay 137p · 471 weeks ago

MY DISCOVER WEEKLY PLAYLIST KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO DO THIS BECAUSE "SOUTHERN NIGHTS" JUST CAME ON

HAIL THE WITCH QUEEN, HAIL THE PRESCIENT ONE

+27 Vote up Vote down

livingandcorporeal 93p · 471 weeks ago

I don’t do anything about it, I just think about it and expect credit for the thinking, like thinking of all the nice things I could do for you
and isn’t that really the best kind of relationship there is

*ugly laughter*

3 replies · active 471 weeks ago

+22 Vote up Vote down

BestLaidPlans 127p · 471 weeks ago

This is the theme of my husband's friend's relationship, where her "boyfriend" told her: "I want to want to marry you."

1 reply · active 471 weeks ago

+21 Vote up Vote down

tinfoilhattie 91p · 471 weeks ago

Ha ha ha - this song was actually written by the late, great John Hartford (banjo player for Glen's band), and Hartford's wife told him it was the most sexist song ever written. So to prove her wrong, he wrote a song called "Golden Globes," and was extremely chagrined when she pointed out THAT song could apply to a man OR a woman.

I miss John Hartford.

+10 Vote up Vote down

halloweenjack64 115p · 471 weeks ago

Ooh! Ooh! Can we do "Wichita Lineman" next?

+4 Vote up Vote down

Girl Named Jack 117p · 471 weeks ago

CRYSTAL GAYLE YOU STOP SINGING ALONG RIGHT THIS INSTANT!

+4 Vote up Vote down

jackan7 76p · 471 weeks ago

Crap, had this song in my head while going to sleep, and even in my dreams last night. I am so suggestible I should not even go on the interwebs.

+2 Vote up Vote down

MzMorg · 471 weeks ago

But...what about Bobbie Gentry? Doesn't it count that she sings it too?

Damn it, now one of my favorite songs is totally ruined because Mallory has pointed out how much like my life it is.

1 reply · active 469 weeks ago

+1 Vote up Vote down

Maggie Rotter · 470 weeks ago

Gordon Lightfoot, back when he was young and beautiful, sang "That's What You Get For Lovin' Me". The man pulled no punches. See on YouTube

1 reply · active 431 weeks ago

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