Paradise (1971)
instrumental intro
= verse 1
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1. When I was a child my family would travel,
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down
to Western Kentucky where my parents were born,
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And there's a backwards old
town that's often remembered,
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so many times that my
memories are worn.
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And daddy
won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County,
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down by the Green River where paradise
lay.
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Well, I'm sorry my son,
but you're too late in asking,
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Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away.
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2. Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River,
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to
the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill.
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Where the air smelled like
snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols,
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but
empty pop bottles was all we would kill.
+ CHORUS +
instrumental = verse 2
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3. Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel,
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and
they tortured the timber and stripped all the land.
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Well, they dug for their coal
till the land was forsaken,
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then
they wrote it all down as the progress of man.
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And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg
County,
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A D
down by the Green River where
paradise lay.
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Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking,
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Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away.
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4. When I die let my ashes float down the Green River,
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let
my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam.
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I'll be halfway to Heaven with
paradise waitin',
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just
five miles away from wherever I am.
+ CHORUS
+ instrumental = verse
4 ….
(John Prine)