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