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

                           G          D
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
                              A        D
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
                                 G           D
Well I'm sorry my son but you're too late in asking
                                A           D
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
**********
D                                G              D
Well sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
                                    A      D
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
                                           G              D
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
                          A            D
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill

[Chorus]
D                                   G                D
Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
                             A                D
They tortured the timber and stripped all the land
                                       G            D
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
                                   A            D
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man

[Chorus]
D                             G               D
When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
                              A          D
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
                               G         D
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waiting
                          A          D
Just five miles away from wherever I am