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 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

'Til 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