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

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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

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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