PARADISE by John Prine

INTRO: D      G      D      D      A       D

D                     G            D
When I was a child my family would travel
D                                 A            D
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
D                                        G        D
And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered
D                     A            D
So many times that my memories are worn.

CHORUS
D                                   G          D
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
D                             A        D
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
D                                   G          D
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
D                               A          D
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

D                     G            D
Well sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
D                                 A            D
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
D                                        G        D
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
D                     A            D
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.

CHORUS
D                                   G          D
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
D                             A        D
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
D                                   G          D
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
D                               A          D
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away






D                     G            D
Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
D                                 A            D
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
D                                        G        D
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
D                     A            D
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

CHORUS
D                                   G          D
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
D                             A        D
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
D                                   G          D
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
D                               A          D
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

D                     G            D
When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
D                                 A            D
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
D                                        G        D
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waiting
D                     A            D
Just five miles away from wherever I am.

CHORUS
D                                   G          D
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
D                             A        D
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
D                                   G          D
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
D                               A          D
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away