When I was a child my family would travel
Down to western Kentucky where my parents were born
There's a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that all my mem'ries're worn
Daddy won't you take me back to Muglenberg County
Down by the Green River where paradise lay
I'm sorry my son but you're too late in askin'
Mr Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
Now sometimes we float on down the Green River
By the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes
and we'd shoot with the rifles
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill
Daddy won't you take me back to Muglenberg County
Down by the Green River where paradise lay
I'm sorry my son but you're too late in askin'
Mr Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovels
They tortured the timber and they stripped all the land
They dug for the coal till the land was forsaken
And wrote it all down as the progress of man
Daddy won't you take me back to Muglenberg County
Down by the Green River where paradise lay
I'm sorry my son but you're too late in askin'
Mr Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
When I die let my body float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester Dam
I'll be halfway to heaven with the paradise waitin'
Five miles away from wherever I am
Daddy won't you take me back to Muglenberg County
Down by the Green River where paradise lay
I'm sorry my son but you're too late in askin'
Mr Peabody's coal train has hauled it away