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 was a boy my family would travel
Down to western Kentucky where my parents were born
There's a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn

* Refrain

Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the avandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like anakes and we'd shoot with our postols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill

* Refrain

Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
They tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal til the land was forsaken
Then they wote it all down as the progress of man

* Refrain

When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rocjester Dam
I'll be halfway to heaven with paradise Waiting
Just five miles away from wherever I am

* Refrain