Artist Profile

Paradise Chords

Paradise chords
John Prine  (1971)

Capo II

C F C  G7 C  F C  G7 C  G7 C

    C                F            
When I was a child my family would 
C
travel,

down to Western Kentucky where my 
G7           C
parents were born

And there's a backwards old town 
      F       C
that's often remembered,
                     G7           
so many times that my memories are 
C
worn.

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

down by the Green River where 
G7       C
Paradise lay

Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're 
F           C
too late in asking,
                            G7     
Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled 
   C
it away

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

to the abandoned old prison down by 
G7    C
Adrie Hill

Where the air smelled like snakes 
        F              C
and we'd shoot with our pistols,
                         G7     
but empty pop bottles was all we 
     C
would kill.

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

down by the Green River where 
G7       C
Paradise lay

Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're 
F           C
too late in asking,
                            G7     
Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled 
   C
it away

C F C  G7 C  F C  G7 C   G7 C

        C                          
Then the coal company came with the 
F               C
world's largest shovel,

and they tortured the timber and 
G7               C
stripped all the land

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

then they wrote it all down as the 
G7          C
progress of man.

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

down by the Green River where 
G7       C
Paradise lay

Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're 
F           C
too late in asking,
                            G7     
Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled 
   C    C G7 C
it away

      C                      F    
When I die let my ashes float down 
         C
the Green River,

let my soul roll on up to the 
G7        C
Rochester dam

I'll be halfway to Heaven with 
F        C
Paradise waitin',
                             G7    
just five miles away from wherever I
C
am.

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

down by the Green River where 
G7       C
Paradise lay

Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're 
F           C
too late in asking,
                            G7     
Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled 
   C
it away

C F C  G7 C  F C  G7 C   G7 C 
easy guitar chords, song lyrics, John Prine