Paradise, KY

When we first crossed the Muhlenberg County line to our new Kentucky home away from home, I thought - Muhlenberg County, that sounds familiar, isn't that in a song lyric?  The line would pop into my head from time to time and I finally had to look it up, yes of course I had heard it before, sung by my favorite John Denver, in the song titled Paradise written by John Prine. 

Listen to John Prine sing Paradise on this YouTube video, where you can see what happened to Paradise. 

Paradise by John Prine

When I was a child my family would travel

Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born

And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered

So many times that my memories are worn.

Chorus:

And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County

Down by the Green River where Paradise lay

Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking

Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River

To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill

Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols

But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.

Repeat Chorus

Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel

And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land

Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken

Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

Repeat Chorus

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 waitin'

Just five miles away from wherever I am.

Repeat Chorus

The song chronicles the history of Paradise, Kentucky and the impact of strip mining for coal in the area. The song became an anthem in the early 70s for environmental control, being recorded by many other artists of the time, including the Everly Brothers (who are also from Muhlenberg County), John Denver, Dwight Yoakam, John Fogerty, and many more.

On a trip back home to Georgia, I dug through our old LPs and found the one I was looking for, with John Denver singing Paradise.

I often refer to our job towns as Paradise, as in 'another day in Paradise'…Paradise, LA, Paradise, OK… but this time there really is a Paradise, Kentucky. Well there was. It is gone now. Nothing left but the graves, and the giant power plant, but that is another story.