Gentle on My Mind

Hartford wrote "Gentle on My Mind" in 1966 after seeing Doctor Zhivago. He said it came in about twenty or thirty minutes, just came real fast, a blaze, a blur, and he called it a word movie; it is a banjo tune with no chorus. He recorded it at RCA Studio A in Nashville, issued it as a single in May 1967 (number 60 on Billboard's country songs), and put it on Earthwords and Music.

Glen Campbell recorded it in June 1967 with the Wrecking Crew, backed by "Just Another Man"; it reached number 30 on the country chart and 62 on the Hot 100 in 1967, and after a 1968 re-release number 39 on the Hot 100 and number eight on Easy Listening. At the 10th Grammy Awards in 1968 Hartford won best country and western song and best folk performance, and Campbell won two. Campbell's record entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008, and the Band Perry won a Grammy for best country duo or group performance with it in 2015. BMI counted over four million US radio plays by 1984 and about six million by 2001, second only to "Yesterday" with all versions combined, and Campbell's version ranks 16th on its Top 100 Songs of the Century.

It has been covered by Patti Page (1968), Frank Sinatra (1968), Dean Martin (1969, number two in the UK), Aretha Franklin (1969), Elvis Presley (1969), Claude Francois (1970, as "Si douce a mon souvenir"), Roberto Carlos (1984, "Caminhoneiro") and Frankie Ruiz (1985, "El Camionero"). We hold two uploads under this title; the one titled with the album is presumably the album track at 3:05, and which is the single mix and which the album track is not known.