“Paradise”
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
“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 Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we’d shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill
“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”
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
“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”
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
“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”
About Johnny Cash Lyrics
Artist: Johnny Cash
Related songs: Fair Weather Friends Lyrics
Album: The Adventures of Johnny Cash
Release date: 1982
Label: Columbia Records
Born: February 26, 1932, Kingsland, Arkansas, United States
Died: September 12, 2003, Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital Midtown, Nashville, Tennessee, United States
Graduation date: 1950
Edited works: I Walk the Line: Very Best of Johnny Cash, MORE
Hall of fame inductions: February 8, 1960, 1977, 1992, 2011