Paradise

When I was a child, my family would travel

To western Kentucky where my parents were born

It's a backwoods old town that's often remembered

So many times that my memories are worn

Oh, daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County

Down by the Green River where Paradise lay?

I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in askin'

Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

Sometimes we traveled right down the Green River

To the Bandit Hole Prison down by Adrie Hill

Where the air smelled like snakes that been chewed with old pistols

And empty pop bottles with all that we'd kill

Oh, daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County

Down by the Green River where Paradise lay?

I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in askin'

Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

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

They tortured the timber, they 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

Oh, daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County

Down by the Green River where Paradise lay?

I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in askin'

Mr. 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, Paradise is waitin'

Five miles away from wherever I am

Oh, daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County

Down by the Green River where Paradise lay?

I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in askin'

Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away