| When I was a child my family would travel
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| Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
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| And there’s a backwards old town that’s often remembered
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| So many times that my memories are worn
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| And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County?
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| Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
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| Well, I’m sorry, my son, but you’re too late in asking
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| Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away
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| Well, sometimes we’d travel right down the Green River
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| To the abandoned old prison down by Airdrie Hill
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| Where the air smelled like snakes and we’d shoot with our pistols
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| But empty pop bottles was all we would kill
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| And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County?
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| Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
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| Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
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| Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away
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| Then the coal company came with the world’s largest shovel
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| And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
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| Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
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| Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man
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| And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County?
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| Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
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| Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
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| Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away
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| When I die, let my ashes float down the Green River
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| Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester Dam
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| I’ll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
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| Just five miles away from wherever I am
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| And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County?
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| Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
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| Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
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| Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away |