From the recording Lightened By Love - Download
4. Paradise (3:33) (John Prine; WB Music Corp. OBO Walden Music, Inc.)
Another great song from another talented folk writer…and something a little different for me. I have always liked this song, but never played it until recently. And I never thought about recording it…ever. But the more I play this song the more it grows on me. And I found that although it’s been recorded dozens of times, there are only a few done by women. Remember that rule for recording covers? Doing something a little differently…and taking a chance. Well, it doesn’t get much different than this! I had to wait to record the main vocal until my voice was a bit warn and tired, just to get that ‘essence’ of Prine…
Lyrics
When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there's a backwards 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 Airdrie 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
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister 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 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
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
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.
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
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away