Lyrics: John Prine
Music: John Prine
A John Prine song played by the Healy-Treece Band in the early 1980s with Bill Kreutzmann on drums.
When I was a young lad my parents would take me
Down to Western Kentucky where my daddy was raised
To a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories would fade
Chorus
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
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
[chorus]
Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they cleared the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug and they dug 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]
I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away