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