Paradise

Album: John Prine (1971)
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  • 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

    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 askin'
    Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

    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 askin'
    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 askin'
    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 askin'
    Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
    Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
    Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away Writer/s: John Prine
    Publisher: BMG Rights Management, Royalty Network, Songtrust Ave, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Spirit Music Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 2

  • Edward M. Brown, Jr. from Bardstown, KyBorn in Greenville, Ky—raised in Drakesboro, Ky 7 miles to/from Paradise. Baptised in the Green River where Hwy 176 ended in the Green River at Paradise where the Song Paradise was written about. Also, worked worked for Peabody Coal Company and P & M Coal Company both helped haul Paradise away.
  • Ginni Latham from Bartlett, IlMy family is from Muhlenberg. I spent Mose of my summers and long weekends down inCentral City, down by Green River where Paradise lays. I had more fun in that river..... until” two summers ago, my cousin from rChicago drown down with just ended her life, because that was her Paradise. Everyone of from Chicago loved that area. I love the song... I listen to it all the time.
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