[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
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

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

[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
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

[Verse 2]
Now, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Airdrie Hill
It's 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
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
[Verse 3]
Well, the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and they stripped all the land
And they dug for their coal 'til the land was forsaken
And then they wrote it all down as 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
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

[Verse 5]
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

[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
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

[Outro]
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away