[Chorus]
Daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County?
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay?
"I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in asking
Mr. Peabody's coal train done hauled it away"

[Verse 1]
When I was a child, my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
To a backward old town that I often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn

[Verse 2]
And sometimes, we'd travel on down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrian's Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill

[Chorus]
So Daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County?
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay?
"I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in asking
Mr. Peabody's coal train done hauled it away"

[Verse 3]
The coal company came with the world's largest shovel
They stripped all the timber and tortured the land
They dug for the coal 'til the land was forsaken
Then wrote it all down to the progress of man
[Chorus]
So Daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County?
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay?
"I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in asking
Mr. Peabody's coal train done hauled it away"

[Verse 4]
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
Five miles away from wherever I am

[Chorus]
So Daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County?
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay?
"I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in asking
Mr. Peabody's coal train done hauled it away"