When I was a child 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.
- Dad won't you take me back to Mulenburg County,
Down by the Green River where paradise lays.
He said, "I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in askin'.
Mr Peabody's coal-train has hauled it away." -
Well sometimes we're travel right down to Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Avery Hill.
Where the air smelled like snakes, we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles are all we would kill.
- REPEAT CHORUS -
Then the coal company came with the worlds largest shovel,
They torchered the timber, stripped all the land.
Dug for the coal til the land was forsaken.
Wrote it all down as a progrss for man.
- REPEAT CHORUS -
When I die let my ashes float down the Green River,
Let my soul roll on up to the Rodchester Dam.
And I'll be half way to Heaven with paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from whereever I am.
- REPEAT CHORUS TWICE -