daddy won t you take me back to muhlenberg county down by the green river where paradise lay sorry my son but you re too late in asking mister peabody s coal train has hauled it away when i was a child my family would travel down to western kentucky where my parents were born a backwards old town that s often remembered so many times that my memories are worn so daddy won t you take me back to muhlenberg county down by the green river where paradise lay sorry my son but you re too late in asking mister peabody s coal train has hauled it away now sometimes we d travel right down the green river to the abandoned old prison down by airdrie hill where the air smelled like snakes and we d shoot with our pistols but empty pop bottles was all we would kill daddy won t you take me back to muhlenberg county down by the green river where paradise lay sorry my son but you re too late in asking mister peabody s coal train has hauled it away well the coal company came with the world s largest shovel and they tortured the timber and they stripped all the land and they dug for their coal til the land was forsaken then they wrote it all down as the progress of man daddy won t you take me back to muhlenberg county down by the green river where paradise lay 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 so daddy won t you take me back to muhlenberg county down by the green river where paradise lay sorry my son but you re too late in asking mister peabody s coal train has hauled it away mister peabody s coal train has hauled it away mister peabody s coal train has hauled it away