Down 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

Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River

To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill

Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols

But empty pop bottles was all we would kill

Chorus:

Oh, daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg 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

Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel

They tortured the timber and stripped all the land

Well, they dug for their coal ‘til the land was forsaken

Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man

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 waiting

Just five miles away from wherever I am

Chorus: