John Prine 1971
About coal strip mining in Appalachia. The town of Paradise, KY was demolished in 1967 so TVA’s coal plant could expand. In 2020 it was converted to a natural gas plant.
When I was a child my family would travel Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born And there’s a backwards old town that’s often remembered So many times that my memories are worn Chorus And 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 Well, sometimes we’d travel right down the Green River To the abandoned old prison down by Airdrie Hill Where the air smelled like snakes we’d shoot with our pistols But empty pop bottles was all we would kill 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 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