When I was a child, my family would travel

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

Chorus

And daddy won't you take me back to Mulenberg county

Down by the Green River, where Paradise lay

Well I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in askin'
Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

Well sometimes we'd float right down the Green River

To an abandoned old prison down by Atry Hill

Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill

Chorus

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

Chorus

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

Chorus