Paradise - John Prine

When I was a child my family would travel

Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born

And there’s a backwards old town that’s often remembered

So many times that my memories are worn

And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County?

Down by the Green River where Paradise lay

Well, I’m sorry, my son, but you’re too late in asking

Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

Well, sometimes we’d travel right down the Green River

To the abandoned old prison down by Airdrie Hill

Where the air smelled like snakes and we’d shoot with our pistols

But empty pop bottles was all we would kill

And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County?

Down by the Green River where Paradise lay

Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking

Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

Then the coal company came with the world’s largest shovel

And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land

Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken

Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man

And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County?

Down by the Green River where Paradise lay

Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking

Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

When I die, let my ashes float down the Green River

Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester Dam

I’ll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'

Just five miles away from wherever I am

And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County?

Down by the Green River where Paradise lay

Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking

Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away