“Gentle On My Mind” by Glen Campbell

Glen Campbell's "Gentle on My Mind" was a John Hartford song first, and Campbell pounced on it fast, recording his version in June 1967 with the Wrecking Crew, the session players he had once been one of; it later turned up on the 1968 album Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell. Hartford had cut it for his own 1967 album, Earthwords & Music, writing it after seeing Doctor Zhivago in 1966 and mixing what the film stirred up with his own life: a drifter moving across the country, turning over the memory of a love he lost.

Campbell's recording made the top 30 of the Hot Country Singles chart, and in 1968 Hartford and Campbell each took home two Grammy Awards for the song. Counting every version, BMI ranks it the second-most-played song on American radio.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.