when i was a child

my family would travel to western kentucky

where my parents were born

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 mulinburg 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 traveled right down the green river

to the abandoned old prison

down by a tree hill

where the air smelled like snakes

we'd shoot with our pistols

but the empty he popped bottles was all we would kill

and daddy won't you take me back to mulenburg county

down by the green river where paradise lay

well i'm sorry my son but you're too late in asking

mister people this cold train has hold it away

then the cold company came

with the world's largest shovel

and they tortured the timber

and they stripped all the land

where 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 mulenburg 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 a paradise waiting

just to five miles away from wherever i am

and daddy won't you take me back to mulenburg 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

and daddy won't you take me back to mulenburg county

down by the green river where paradise lay

well i'm sorry my son but you're too late in asking

mister people this cold train has hold it away