Paradise in South Walton Song Lyrics - apologies to John Prine

[sunsetdunes]

I was listening to John Prine's "Paradise" the other day and these lyrics just seemed to pop into my mind:

Paradise (apologies to John Prine)

When I was a child my family would travel
Down to South Walton County where I wish I was born
And there's a white sandy beach that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.

And daddy won't you take me back to South Walton County
Down by the gulf waters where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister St. Joe Arivida has hauled it away

We visited Seaside and Seacrest and Seagrove
Blue Mountain and Grayton and old Inlet Beach
Didn?t have no huge houses, but boy were we happy
?Cause the world?s finest waters were right within reach

And daddy won't you take me back to South Walton County
Down by the gulf waters where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister St. Joe Arivida has hauled it away

Then developers scraped up the dunes with their shovels
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug their foundations till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

And daddy won't you take me back to South Walton County
Down by the gulf waters where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister St. Joe Arivida has hauled it away

When I die let my ashes float down the gulf waters
Let my soul roll on up to the white beach sand
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am.

And daddy won't you take me back to South Walton County
Down by the gulf waters where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister St. Joe Arivida has hauled it away

 

[Smiling JOe]

Thanks fo r the music education this morning. I am terrible with pop-culture and always thought that John Denver originally wrote that song because he is the only one I have heard perform it.

I just played that out on the the 'ol Bango, and I loved it as much as the original song, which always gets me emotional. Nice lyrics!

 

[kathydwells]

Great job!!! I don't like it, I love it! :clap_1:

 

[Miss Kitty]

Hmmmm...I am confused.

 

[Mermaid]

Hmmmm...I am confused.

Miss Kitty, here are the original lyrics so you can get the tune back in your head and sing along to the new (and improved) verses:

John Prine - Paradise Lyrics

When I was a child my family would travel
Down to western kentucky where my parents were born
And there?s a backwards old town that?s often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.

Chorus:
And daddy won?t you take me back to muhlenberg county
Down by the green river where paradise lay
Well, I?m sorry my son, but you?re too late in asking
Mister peabody?s coal train has hauled it away

Well, sometimes we?d travel right down the green river
To the abandoned old prison down by adrie hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we?d shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.

Repeat chorus:

Then the coal company came with the world?s largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

Repeat chorus:

 

[Miss Kitty]

mr. Peabody = St. Joe???

 

[Mermaid]

mr. Peabody = St. Joe???

Yes. Although I think the blame for all the development shouldn't rest solely on St. Joe's shoulders. There are lots of Peabodies at the beach. (the developers of Prominence, for example, followed the 3rd verse to a perfect "T" better than anyone else around ).

 

[Rita]

Very interesting Sunsetdunes!

We used to sing the original back in the 70s when we lived in Eastern KY foothills. The coal mining boom was past then so it was a cleaner environment than the tales we heard about. Strip mining scared the landscape for life.

Gas wells are being dug all over our area of Texas now, along with the pipelines that are traversing people's properties and cutting swaths, taking old trees, ruining property owners views and using up "boatloads" (as BR would say) of water. We're in a severe drought here and these folks are using millions of gallons of water. They have to buy water along with drilling water wells, tapping into the supply.

Messing up the landscape and ecology goes on many places, just in different ways for different reasons. We need to look more toward conservation than we are imo.

.

 

[sunsetdunes]

mr. Peabody = St. Joe???

I just chose St. Joe Arvida because 1) they are big enough that everyone knows them and 2) it has the right number of syllables for the verse. You can, of course, substitute any developer you wish.

To those who enjoyed it: thanks! Hope it gets sung sometime.

And my apologies for the mispellings of Arvida in the song. I was gonna edit the post to correct them, but somehow the edit button wasn't available on the post.

 

[Jennifer Steele]

Steele Mama and I just heard Mr. Prine sing this live in Atlanta a couple weeks ago...beautiful show.