Daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train done hauled it away

When I was a child, my family would travel
Down to western Kentucky where my parents were born
To a backwards old town that I've often remembered
So many times that my mem'ries are worn

And sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrian's Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill

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

And the [bad word] came with the world's largest shovel
They stripped all the timber and tortured the land
they dug for the coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down to the progress of man

Oh daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train done 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'
Five miles away from where ever I am

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