Paradise

Paradise is about the effect of surface coal mining in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, where Prine's parents came from. It names the Peabody Energy company and the town of Paradise, which was abandoned and demolished in late 1967 to make way for an expansion of the Tennessee Valley Authority's power plant. Peabody later issued a response to the song titled Facts vs. Prine.

He cut it in New York for his 1971 debut, with Steve Goodman on harmony vocal and guitar and Dave Prine on fiddle. He recorded it again for German Afternoons in 1986, saying that over the years the song had become a bluegrass standard and he wanted a bluegrass version. The original had needed a player from the Memphis symphony to take the fiddle part.

In the last verse he asks for his ashes to float down the Green River. That wish was carried out after his death in 2020, and a park by the Rochester Dam was dedicated to him in 2022. Lynn Anderson's 1976 version reached number 26 on the Billboard country chart, and John Fogerty has called the song a touchstone for people who decry the way corporations run roughshod over the little guy. Prine played it 458 times in logged setlists.