C F C When I was a child my family would travel, C Am G C down to western Kentucky where my parents were born. F C F There's a backwards old town that's often remembered, G C so many times that my memories are worn. C F C And Daddy won't you take me back to Mulemberg County. Am G C Down by the Green River where paradise lay. F C I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in askin' Am G C Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away. C F C Well sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River C Am G C to an abandoned old prison down by Ebrie Hill. F C Where the air smelled like snakes we'd shoot with our pistols, G C but empty pop bottles was all we would kill. C F C Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel, Am G C and they tortured the timber and stripped all the land. F C Well they dug for their coal 'till the land was forsaken, Am G C then wrote it all down as the progress of man. C F C When I die let my ashes flow down the Green River. Am G C Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester Dam. F C I'll be halfway to heaven with paradise waitin' G C just five miles away from wherever I am.