PARADISE - John Prine 


1. When I was a boy my family would travel
   Down to western Kentucky where my parents were born
   There's a backwards old town that's often remembered
   So many times that my memories are worn

2. 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

(Chorus) 
    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 asking
    Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

3. Then the coal company came with the world's largest showel
   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

4. 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

Chorus:


THE COUNTRY GENTLEMEN - Vanguard 1972