JOHN PRINE - 'PARADISE'

on Facebook

One of the great joys on the internet and social media in particular is joining with groups on Facebook with like minded folk or fans of musicians and artists we admire. I recently joined a group of John Prine Fans and in response to a mention of the Prine masterpiece 'Paradise' someone posted a picture of the Green River looking towards where 'Paradise' had once been. 

This song means a great deal to me for reasons best know to someone else it always haunted me as it's ecological message told the cautionary tale of strip mining and the effect upon the countryside. 

I had not thought as to whether it was true or a fiction to express a similar story to get a message across but in asking found there were people in the group who lived within spitting distance of the place. I was astonished and really enjoyed our exchange on there





My exchange with the folks from Muhlenberg County, Kentucky I repeat here and hope they don't mind. The picture too is worth a look for these eyes as it means so much

"Down by the Green River, looking back to Paradise."  © Clay Stevens

My Facebook exchange here:

Andy Swapp  Sorry I am from half way round the globe so is this a real shot of the actual place?!?!???

Clay Stevens Andy Swapp, if you zoom in on the horizon at middle, slight right on the picture, you can see a silhouette of a power plant cooling tower and stack, through the tree branches. This is the TVA Paradise power plant that the song is about. On the other side of the highway, not in the picture, is a coal shovel, it's not the world's largest shovel, from the song, but it's a pretty good sized shovel. The area in the picture is what the song is about.

Clay Stevens I should have said that the power plant is at the location of the town of Paradise, Ky. The town was torn down because of the close proximity to the power plant. A lot of the land around the area was strip mined for coal and the song is about that area. Everytime we drive through there, I start singing the song and think about John Prine running up and down the banks of the Green River.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Fossil_Plant

Rick Smith My great grandmother was the last to leave Paradise. I can remember walking down the road to the river.

From Wikipedia - 

In 1971, singer/songwriter John Prine, whose father was from Paradise, released a recording of his song about the town, which said "Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away." Peabody Coal Co. was one of two coal firms that strip mined the area around the town and plant.

John Prine
A song about Paradise, Kentucky, called "Paradise", was written and made famous by singer/songwriter John Prine. The lyrics attribute the destruction of Paradise to the Peabody company, and allude to the fact that the town was a site for strip mining. In reality, the town remained in partial form after the Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Company and Peabody Coal Company [9] stripped the coal around it. The Paradise Fossil Plant was initially erected with only two units; afterwards, the residents who were left in the village were bought out by the Tennessee Valley Authority after ash fall from the newly opened plant brought health concerns to the area. Soon after the TVA bought the town out, they tore down all the structures and constructed the largest cyclonic fired boiler in the world at the new "Paradise Unit 3". All that remains of the original town is a small cemetery at the top of a hill close to the plant. The town was not abandoned by any flooding of the Green River. Even though the town did endure numerous floods during its lifespan, it survived all the floods of its history.