Paradise Lost

When I first moved to St. Louis, many years ago, I remember seeing a large Peabody Coal sign near the Mississippi River downtown, and immediately I thought of the John Prine song that lamented the effect of coal mining on the environment. Here's John Denver's cover of that song.

"Paradise"
by John Prine, 1971

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 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 Airdrie 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 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.

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.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.

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.

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.