Paradise

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 Adrie 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