When I was a child,
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.
An d 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
Mr. Peabody's coal train
has hauled it away
Well sometimes we'd travel
right down the Green River
To an abandoned old prison
down by Edry 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
I'm sorry my son,
but you're too late in asking
Mr. 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 off all the land
Well, they dug for their coal
till 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
I'm sorry my son,
but you're too late in asking
Mr. Peabody's coal train is hauled
headway
When I die, 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 awaits
I'm sorry my son,
but you're too late in asking
Mr. Peabody's coal train
has hauled it away