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 Muhlenburg County
Down by the Green River where paradise lay
Well I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mr. 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 Avery hill
Where the air smelled like snakes, we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenburg County
Down by the Green River where paradise lay
Well I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
And 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
And they wrote it all down as the progress of man
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenburg County
Down by the Green River where paradise lay
Well I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
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 with paradise waiting
Just five miles away from wherever I am
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenburg County
Down by the Green River where paradise lay
Well I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away