“Paradise” was written by John Prine in 1971 for his self-titled debut album. The song is built around the actual destruction of the small Muhlenberg County, Kentucky community of Paradise, where Prine’s parents had grown up before moving to suburban Chicago. While Prine was serving in the U.S. Army in Germany, his father sent him a newspaper article reporting that Peabody Coal Company had bought out the residents of Paradise in 1967 and that the Tennessee Valley Authority planned to demolish the town for power-plant expansion. Prine wrote “Paradise” for his father in response.
The song’s lyrical premise — the singer’s father returning him to a Kentucky home now buried under strip-mine spoil — gave the environmental devastation of Appalachian coal extraction one of its most enduring cultural expressions. The song specifically names Peabody Coal as the agent of the destruction; Peabody Energy later released a corporate response titled “Facts vs. Prine” disputing the song’s account.
“Paradise” became one of John Prine’s signature songs and has been recorded by The Everly Brothers, Tom T. Hall, John Denver, Dwight Yoakam, and many others. The song crossed firmly into the bluegrass canon and has remained a standard at jam sessions, particularly at jams where the Appalachian-environmental theme is at home. Prine’s death in April 2020 prompted a wave of “Paradise” performances by bluegrass and country acts paying tribute to one of the genre’s most influential modern songwriters.
