Paradise

"Paradise" was written by John Prine and included on his debut album released in 1971. It has been covered by Johnny Cash, Sturgill Simpson, John Denver, Tom T. Hall, The Everly Brothers, Lynn Anderson, Roy Acuff, Jimmy Buffett, Dwight Yoakam, John Fogerty, and others.
When I was a child, my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there's a backward old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn
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 asking
Mister 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 Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill
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 till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man
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