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

"And Daddy, won't you take me back to Muglenberg County?
Down by the Green River where paradise lay"
"I'm sorry my child 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
By 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

"And Daddy, won't you take me back to Muglenberg County
Down by the Green River where paradise lay?"
"Well, I'm sorry my child but you're too late in asking
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
Well, they dug for the coal 'til the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man

"And Daddy, won't you take me back to Muglenberg County
Down by the Green River where paradise lay?"
"Well, I'm sorry my child but you're too late in asking
Mr Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
Mr Peabody's coal train has hauled it away"