PARADISE            John Prine
Tuning: drop-D

     D                    G           D
When I was a child and my family were travelling
                               A            D
Down Western Kentucky where my parents were born,
              D                         G        D
And there's a backwards old town that's always remembered
                      A            D
So many times that my memories are worn.


Chorus: (same tune)

  And Daddy won't you take me back to Nurlenburg County
  Down by the Green River where Paradise lay?
  Well I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking,
  Mr Peabody's Coal train has hauled it away.



Well sometimes we travelled right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Aintree Hill.
Where the air smelled like snakes, we'd shoot with our pistols,
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.

Chorus


And the coal comp'ny came with the world's largest shovel,
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land,
Well they dug for the coal 'till the land was forsaken
And they wrote it all down as the progress of Man.

Chorus


And when I die let my ashes flow down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester Dam.
I'll be half-way to Heaven with Paradise waiting,
Just five miles away from wherever I am.

Chorus