When I was a child my family would travel
Down to western kentucky where my parents were born
And theres a backwards old town thats often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.
Chorus:
And daddy wont you take me back to muhlenberg county
Down by the green river where paradise lay
Well, Im sorry my son, but youre too late in asking
Mister peabodys coal train has hauled it away
Well, sometimes wed travel right down the green river
To the abandoned old prison down by adrie hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and wed shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.
Repeat chorus:
Then the coal company came with the worlds 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.
Repeat chorus:
When I die let my ashes float down the green river
Let my soul roll on up to the rochester dam
Ill be halfway to heaven with paradise waitin
Just five miles away from wherever I am.
Repeat chorus: