I did a rewrite of this song in memory of the fires in Paradise California a few years ago:
Transcript:
'Alright I'm gonna do my new version of John Prine's song 'Paradise' which is about
a small town in Western Kentucky where his parents grew up <pause for rooster crow> destroyed by
coal mining and my interpretation is about Paradise California; destroyed by coal burning climate change so when when I
was kid we used to go down to Southern Illinois and to where my mother was born and visit the family, just over the river from John Prime's paradise in Kentucky and I remember plinking guns and pop bottles and you know it all kind of made sense so ...
When I was a child my family would travel up to Northern California where my parents were born.
There's a backwards old town that's often remembered.
So many times that my memories are worn.
Daddy won't you take me back to Butte County,
Down by, the Feather River where paradise lay.
I'm sorry my son but you're too late in asking.
Mr. Trump's coal plan has burned it away.
Well sometimes we traveled, right up the Feather River, to the abandoned old stamp mill where the air smelled like snakes.
And we'd shoot with our pistols but empty pop bottles was all we would kill.
Well the gold miners came with their saws and their shovels <pause for railroad train sounds> and they tortured the timber and stripped all the land.
But they the wealth till the land was forsaken.
They wrote it all down as the progress of man.
When I die let my ashes float down the Feather River.
Let my soul roll on down to the Oroville dam.
I'll be halfway to heaven with paradise waiting
Just five miles away from where ever I am.
I did a rewrite of this song in memory of the fires in Paradise California a few years ago:
Transcript: 'Alright I'm gonna do my new version of John Prine's song 'Paradise' which is about a small town in Western Kentucky where his parents grew up <pause for rooster crow> destroyed by coal mining and my interpretation is about Paradise California; destroyed by coal burning climate change so when when I was kid we used to go down to Southern Illinois and to where my mother was born and visit the family, just over the river from John Prime's paradise in Kentucky and I remember plinking guns and pop bottles and you know it all kind of made sense so ...
When I was a child my family would travel up to Northern California where my parents were born. There's a backwards old town that's often remembered. So many times that my memories are worn.
Daddy won't you take me back to Butte County, Down by, the Feather River where paradise lay.
I'm sorry my son but you're too late in asking. Mr. Trump's coal plan has burned it away. Well sometimes we traveled, right up the Feather River, to the abandoned old stamp mill where the air smelled like snakes. And we'd shoot with our pistols but empty pop bottles was all we would kill. Well the gold miners came with their saws and their shovels <pause for railroad train sounds> and they tortured the timber and stripped all the land. But they the wealth till the land was forsaken. They wrote it all down as the progress of man.
When I die let my ashes float down the Feather River. Let my soul roll on down to the Oroville dam. I'll be halfway to heaven with paradise waiting Just five miles away from where ever I am.
Pan to chicken: 'hey there girl, how you doing?'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Emb8bpG2PKo&t=8s
Thanks, I hope you enjoyed. I really love John Prine.